Weird Science
by Molleyn
Summary: A new staffmember is assigned to help the team on a project. But things aren't what they seem and Jack gets suspicious... What's doctor Brennan really up to? Angst, humour and drama are just mediums for fluff. Mainly Daniel/OC with some Jack/Sam.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't earn, don't sue.

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Chapter one

As the non-exciting debriefing of the non-exciting last mission was ending, general Hammond had an announcement to make.

"Before you go, I'd like you all to meet someone who you will be working closely with on your next mission. Her name is doctor Brennan and she's been producing some very interesting work in wormhole mechanics, among other things. I recruited her myself from the university", he said, with a slight air of pride over having done all - or at least most of - the work to single out the candidate best suited for the job. "She's been assigned to help Major Carter manufacture and set up the equipment needed to analyze the energy emissions we picked up on PXG-465." He turned to Sam. "No offense, Major, we'd just like to get this show on the road as soon as possible. I thought you wouldn't mind some new input."

"Not at all", Sam answered. "I've read some of her work, I think she's brilliant. And I could always use another pair of hands."

An airman knocked on the open door and stuck his head in.

"Sir?"

General Hammond nodded.

"Show her in, Jensen."

Clicks from sturdy heels echoed outside the room before a distinguished woman in her fifties entered. Although dressed in a grey, strict skirt suit and wearing her hair in perfectly permed short locks, she had a kind face that took the edge off the mean-librarian look. She smiled and the group directed their attention to her and prepared to start greetings. She, however, turned to the door opening as if she expected someone else to join her.

"Here you are", she said and a second woman entered the room. Jack shot a quick look of confusion at Sam across the table. This one was wearing jeans and a snug t-shirt with some worn print on it, and a large white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Her hair was in a tousled ponytail and Jack caught a quick glimpse of bright red basketball sneakers eyeing her over. All and all, she didn't fit his mental picture of a "professor".

"Thank you", said the second woman warmly to the first. "I'm a sucker for getting lost", she stated to the room as her older guide from Accounting left her to be inspected by the curious group of people. She locked eyes with general Hammond and smiled with recognition.

"Welcome, doctor Brennan", greeted the general. "May I present to you Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter, Dr Jackson and Teal'c." The woman sat the bunch of papers she was carrying on the table and went up to shake hands with Jack and Sam, then leaned over to reach the hands of Daniel and Teal'c, exchanging hellos with everyone. Shaking hands with Teal'c seemed to startle her though, as she interrupted her movements the moment their hands met and rested her eyes on him, raising her other hand to place it on top of his. It lasted only a second and she let go, returning her focus to the whole room as if nothing had happened. The others exchanged amused glances.

"Teal'c isn't your ordinary airman, as you can see", general Hammond said with a gesture to the large Jaffa. Teal'c himself gave professor Brennan a stoic look.

"The marking tends to throw people off", Jack helpfully explained.

"Oh yes, of course", doctor Brennan said quickly, looking at Teal'cs forehead as if that was what had bewildered her all along. "Jaffa, right?" She waved a finger. "I've been briefed just a little bit on what goes on here. Honestly, I think it's amazing. I can't believe you guys actually travel through a wormhole on a regular basis." She sent an awestruck look around the group. Daniel smiled and exchanged looks with his friends across the table.

"It is pretty cool when you think about it", he mumbled. Actually, going off-world as often as they did, the gate travel was effectively losing some of its former fascination. Especially with all the hassle that so often followed, what with angry aliens and near-death experiences and all. Or actual death experiences. It was nice to hear someone that saw the basic wonders of the gate as they once had. Perhaps it would spread some new enthusiasm around the teams.

General Hammond interrupted Daniel's train of thought. "Well, I'm sure you'd like to get settled in as soon as possible, doctor Brennan", he said, standing up. "Major Carter, why don't you show the doctor around the facilities. I'm sure you have lots to talk about."

"Sure", Sam answered. She turned to doctor Brennan. "Why don't we go down to the lab and I'll fill you in..." She interrupted herself, her eye caught by the print on the doctor's t-shirt. She frowned lightly in confusion. "Is that a... caffeine molecule?"

"Yup." Doctor Brennan just smiled softly, offering no excuse for the unorthodox attire and Sam continued. "Um, fill you in on where we stand on the tripolar amp project."

"Absolutely. Hey, am I right that you've actually been using titanium fusing?"

Sam and the professor proceeded down the hall in enthusiastic discussion. As they went on, Sam started to feel more and more giddy about her new colleague. At last, someone who seemed to be every bit as interested in science and mechanics as she was. Someone who seemed to be totally on her level. Someone she could actually talk to without dumbing down or having to explain simple basics to before they'd get the important stuff. And on top of that – she seemed nice.

Sam had often missed having a real girl friend around. She spent so much time at work she hardly ever saw any of her old friends, and the base showed a sorry lack of potential new ones. She loved her boys, she did, and she had fun with them. She knew she could talk to any of them about anything, but it wasn't the same thing as relating to a close female friend. They simply didn't have the perspective it meant to belong to her sex, just as she didn't have the perspective that came with belonging to theirs. If this new person turned out to be as friendly as she seemed right now, Sam would maybe even ask her if she wanted to go for a beer or something. But she didn't want to raise any expectations and put that thought in the archive for Later.

Jack, Daniel and Teal'c followed behind as they made their way down towards their offices. Watching the women walking some ten yards ahead of them, Jack said hesitantly:

"She's an unusual ph.D..."

"Yeah..." Wrinkles formed above Daniel's nose. "She must have raced through college or something."

Teal'c raised an eyebrow ever so slightly. "Is there something unusual about doctor Brennan?"

Daniel turned his head to him and back, raising his eyebrows in a nothing's-the-matter kind of fashion. "No, no... nothing unusual..." Then his eyebrows fell together again.

"She just seems a little young to be a professor at a university doing all that heavy science stuff", Jack concluded.

"Perhaps she is older than she appears", Teal'c suggested.

Jack didn't feel convinced. He had a gut, and he trusted it, and his gut said there was something about this doctor Brennan that was a little bit... off.

Actually, professor Brennan was young for her position. She knew she didn't look like the typical doctor of quantum mechanics, and she knew people noticed. Her normal uniform looked more inspired by teenage geeks than the hallways of a renowned university. Perhaps she should cut her hair short and start wearing tweed. Get some orthopedic shoes. But she liked her sneakers. They were nice and red. And she liked her jeans and men's shirts, they were comfortable, and she shouldn't care what anyone might think anyway, so what the hell. She'd been doing her research for years now, and the ones who counted knew she was very good at it. She just hoped these people would know it too – she had landed an absolute dream, and wasn't prepared to let it go for anything.

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A/N: Reviews are love.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"It's an absolute dream", doctor Brennan marveled as Sam led her into the gate room. Sam had decided to make a quick stop with her guest at the heart of the base before proceeding to the lab. "And you monitor the alpha fluctuations with a DST-program?"

"That's right." Sam was smiling to herself at doctor Brennan's unconcealed fascination. "Doctor Brennan..."

"Noli, please. Call me Noli." The doctor was making her way up the ramp, her gaze locked on the dark gray gate that was looking slightly ominous.

"Noli. Um, the gate's not going to be activated for a few hours so I thought we might come back later, when SG-9 is scheduled to return, and you can see it in action."

"That'd be great..." Noli was standing inches from the gate with only half an ear directed at Sam. She slowly raised her hand, and paused when her palm was mere millimeters from the surface, as if she was checking the temperature of a hotplate. Then she calmly pressed the flat of her hand against it and leaned in, resting her temple on the surface above.

After a few, for Sam slightly awkward seconds, Noli stood up straight and let her hand fall to her side. She turned and walked back down to Sam looking quite content.

"Just wanted to say hi."

Sam nodded, trying to neutralize her face. She supposed what Noli had just done wasn't quite strange enough to count as strange, yet she got the feeling that, well, it was. But every scientist is entitled to a certain amount of excentricity, she thought to herself. In any case she soon forgot about the whole thing as they proceeded to the lab, absorbed in conversation.

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When SG-9 returned in the afternoon Sam brought Noli to the gate to watch it in action. She watched the computer readings in deep concentration, and after grilling the team with questions about how it felt to go through the wormhole the doctor turned to Sam with an array of technical ponderings. Sam was happy to answer, or discuss together with Noli when she didn't have the immediate answers, but she was surprised that her new colleague wasn't more interested in the foreign world the team had just visited. So was Daniel, when he came down to have a look at the large object mostly resembling a rock that SG-9 had brought with them to be examined.

"It sounds like you're more fascinated that wormhole travel is at all possible than the fact that there are countless other worlds out there full of aliens", he mused, his own mind trailing off into space.

"Well, I never really doubted that... Felt like an alien enough times myself, you know?" Noli sounded cheerful, but for a short moment a cloud chased across her eyes. Daniel and Sam smiled a little hesitantly. Noli seemed a bit embarrassed and changed the subject, crouching at the big rock. "So, is this anything?" she asked, turned to Daniel. He got down next to her and squinted his eyes. "Well", he started and trailed its surface with his fingers. "This looks like it might have had something written on it... Or, maybe not..." The rock really was very anonymous and he wasn't quite sure why the team had brought it back. "Sometimes you can recover..." He interrupted himself as Noli seemed to have lost interest in what he was saying and was staring intently on the rock, her hand hovering over the surface and then landing flat on it. Her expression softened, and after a moment she let go and stood up.

"I think you should keep it. Who knows, maybe it's something", she said.

"Ok..." Daniel was a bit surprised that Noli should have an opinion on the subject, but gathered it was the curiosity of a layman speaking. "By the way", he remembered, "they're setting up an office for you but it's not done yet, so general Hammond said you should bunk up with me."

Daniel wasn't overly excited to be sharing his office; it might be interesting having this newcomer around, but it might also get annoying. As long as she didn't get in the way too much he guessed it would be alright for a little while.

Upon leaving Sam talked to Daniel. "Did you see that?" she said quietly. "She did the same thing with the stargate."

"What?"

Sam gestured. "The... touching. She put her hand on it."

Daniel looked at her. "Ok?"

Sam realised how it sounded. She gave up and said: "It's probably nothing. I just took notice, that's all."

"Maybe she's just a touchy-feely kind of person."

"Yeah." Sam didn't feel convinced, but couldn't find any rational reason to feel suspicious.

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	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Having doctor Brennan across from his desk proved to be a two-sided affair for Daniel. Being earth-bound until the project was ready he spent the days in his office, doing research. He had cleared the opposite side of his desk for her laptop and when she wasn't working in the lab with Sam Noli sat there clicking away, tapping pencils on the desk, eating crunchy things and humming. Soon she started peeking over to his side, asking about things in his books, revealing she was a bit of a language junkie herself. This Daniel enjoyed, because as opposed to his team members Noli didn't get that blank stare when he got into rambling about something interesting. Instead she listened with genuine interest and got him to tell her about dialects, alphabets and alien races.

"I'm more of a modernist", she said, "never learned much of the classic languages. But they're the mother of everything, the key. I love recognizing roots, seeing how vastly separate things are really connected."

"I know what you mean", said Daniel, and he really did. The notion of everything being connected - not just languages - was something he'd always had, even before his ascension. They journey he'd made had only made it that much more obvious. He liked that she seemed to have that same notion, though it obviously could not be as tangible as his.

"And the smale foweles machen melodyen", said Noli into her screen, smiling. The pronounciation sounded north european, but Daniel couldn't immediately make it out. He squinted his eyes and asked what it was.

"Canterbury tales, buddy", said Noli and wiggled her eyebrows at him. "English."

"Ah." Daniel chuckled and got back to work.

* * *

A week went by, filled with work for some and boredom for others. Jack unsuccessfully tried to speed things up by loitering around the lab with Teal'c and occasionally making appearances in Daniel's office. He couldn't quite get a grip on this doctor Brennan, this professor, who seemed every bit as brainy as Carter but explained things in ways he actually understood.

He was in the lab, picking up things and playing with them while Carter was taking them away from him and putting them back when he accidentally asked: "So what's so interesting about this planet's energy.. thing anyway?" He secretly winced when Carter started talking about new methods of analysis. His ears tuned out but his eyes stayed on her - she sure was pretty when she got that glow in her face from talking about things like that. He quickly scorned himself for eyeing his second-in-command. Then he noticed she had stopped talking and was exchanging giggles with doctor Brennan. She in her turn started talking.

"All matter, on the smallest level, the tiniest bits that make up molecules - emits energy. That's the same as saying it's moving, because on that level movement is energy. So essentially, everything vibrates. Rocks. People. The floor. Planets. Everything has its own frequency that it vibrates on; it's like everything in the world is humming."

Alright. Humming. He could see that. That's kinda cool. Carter filled in:

"This planet is emmitting something we haven't been able to identify yet, it could be an unknown form of radiation, or a new element, like naquadah. Plus, this apparatus we're building to help us analyse it we'll be able to use on things we already know about, by extracting frequency patterns unique for certain elements." Doctor Brennan added:

"We're kinda hoping we'll be able to point it at things and go 'Hey! That's gold', or something."

Jack looked at them sideways. "That'd be cool... And useful."

Doctor Brennan looked enthusiastic. "Wouldn't it though? Imagine if we could develop a kind of radar for biological matter. Scan people, if you will. Of course, that's way ahead in the future." At this idea, even Jack felt enthusiasm rising. He supposed it would mean an easy way to tell humans apart from goa'ulds. A look at Carter's beamingly hopeful face told him that's what she was thinking too.

"Well", he said. "Sounds like I should leave you two to it then. Build that... radar."

He left them, wondering what it was with the professor chick that didn't seem quite right. Was it just that she did the same work as Carter, but talked about it in a different way? Was it the unorthodox t-shirts that made it difficult to take her seriously? Or was she hiding something? Whatever that would be... Both Carter and Daniel had some reservations about her, even though he couldn't quite grasp what it was she did that bothered Carter. Something about touching her stuff, or something. At the same time she seemed very likable. In any case the gut feeling he had had about her from the first day was apparently shared by the others. He decided to keep keeping his eyes open.

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A/N

Apart from the highly dubious physics in this story, which I think we should just accept and ignore, what do you think? Anything ooc? Am I right about Daniel? So many questions, so little money (to buy dvd's).


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: It's been brought to my attention that the meaning of the term "professor" differs between different countries. Simply put, in the US it's a title and in Sweden it's a degree, and since the point of Noli Brennan's title is to show how proficient she is in her field I'm changing it to "doctor". Sorry for the inconvenience.

Chapter four, just a shorty:

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Chapter 4

Daniel was still ambivalent about Noli's random presence in his office. On the one hand, she kept interrupting his train of thought as she came and went, moved her squeaky chair around and tapped her pencil on the desk, and he wasn't getting as much done as he wanted. A hint of frustration was growing inside of him over this. On the other hand, when they both trailed off from their respective work and engaged in conversation, she seemed to be empathetic and curious. And one morning, when Noli had just come in and seated herself to start the day's work, he got another hint of that side of her personality.

Daniel was looking at old engravings describing goa'ulds and one people's perception of them that seemed unusually sober. Noli tilted her head to get a better view of the pictures. She thoughtfully gestured at them.

"Symbiotes", she said.

"Right."

"And they're evil, basically." Daniel nodded. He started telling her about their traits and behaviour, illustrating with examples from SG-1's own experiences with the creatures. Noli seemed saddened.

"The universe is abusing itself", she said slowly, looking down at the engravings. Then she looked up, smiling a little embarrassed. "That probably sounded crazy."

Daniel looked at her.

"No, actually, it didn't. If you want to take the notion that everything's connected a step further..."

"Then everything is the same", Noli filled in. "There are no borders between matter, and everything _in_ the universe, _is_ the universe." She laughed. "Sounds so flakey." Daniel smiled.

"It's true though." He was surprised. Maybe this physics professor was closer to understanding the world as he saw it than he first thought. If only she could stop fidgeting with things while she worked.

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	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Timeline? Well, I started writing the beginning of this while season four(ish) was airing, then went on to the end, middle and more beginning all the while the series was progressing. So let's just say it's Stargate-verse, with series-focuses a little jumbled.

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Chapter 5

As the work on the specialised equipment progressed Sam and Noli found that they could cover more ground by dividing the work between them, Sam doing the hands-on installments in the lab and Noli calculating in the office. They were now so in tune with where they were going they didn't need to do everything together. Mostly they would meet up in the morning and at lunch, chatting away about the project, then moving on to any subject big or small. They had fun and Sam found Noli to be friendly and open, except for one area - when she touched the subject of Noli's own research, she became reserved. Not about the practical parts, that Sam knew pretty well anyway, but about what was behind it all, her ideas. She just didn't seem to want to talk about it, and Sam found that odd. She tried to bring it up with Daniel, who besides herself was the one who had spent most time with Noli, seeing as the colonel and Teal'c weren't directly involved with the project (although that didn't stop them from bothering her in the lab).

Daniel was mostly growing frustrated over Noli's precsense in his office. He liked her, he did, but she was constantly disrupting him from his texts, making him lose concentration with questions and general noises. And she had started to play music, because he had said it was alright. Not that it wasn't good music, it was diverse and a lot of it he'd never heard before, and it wasn't loud, but it was quite enough to be distracting. He hadn't noticed anything mysteriously sealed off in Noli's personal sphere, since their conversation had mostly been about linguistics and aliens. And the universe as a whole.

"She's like a restless buddhist", he said. "She's got her mind gathered but she won't stop moving around, and leaving crumbs on my desk." Sam chuckled. Daniel had an afterthought.

"It's almost as if she's been getting more and more restless since she got here."

"Huh. I hadn't noticed." Noli had been acting perfectly normal around Sam, no more of that probably-not-so-strange touching of foreign objects. It was just that little bit of unspoken circumstances around her work that bothered her now.

In fact, Noli _had_ been getting more and more restless working in Daniel's office. It culminated ten days after her arrival, the day the team was scheduled for departure to PXG-465. She was double-checking her digits before pronouncing the energy analysis equipment ready. Daniel was sitting at his desk, trying to read up on some things, and Noli was sitting across from him wagging her foot under the table. She was shifting around, drumming her fingers, changing songs on her playlist and generally making Daniel send her looks under his brow. He tried to return focus to his text and thought he would be allowed to when things finally went quiet for a while. Then, after a few minutes of staring into his book trying to regain his calm, he heard her voice:

"Hey Daniel."

He looked up, tired. "Yes?"

Noli's voice changed into that of a mexican villain and went: "Sey hello to mah litto frien'", as a sock puppet appeared over the stash of books in between them. Daniel finally snapped.

"Noli, please!" he called out. "I'm trying to work!" He surprised himself with his tone and closed his eyes, trying to regain composure. The sock puppet was slowly withdrawing. "It's just, a little quiet would be nice."

"Sorry", said Noli quietly. She really did become still, and after a few minutes she closed her computer and left for the lab.

Daniel felt bad that he had snapped at her, but at the same time the peace and quiet she left behind was great. Hopefully she'd have her own office done by the time they got back from the planet and she wouldn't be getting on his nerves anymore. If she were to stay on as a member of the staff he'd be happy to get to know her better, just without her nervous energy all over his office.

Within a couple of hours the team was ready to depart. They were assembled in the gate room together with the russian team, whom general Hammond had made them bring along. Jack was grumpy, whining quietly to Teal'c about the russians. Teal'c in his turn was standing patiently waiting, mildly amused by his friend's childish sarcasms. Finally a couple of engineers rolled some pieces of large equipment in on a MALP, closely followed by Noli.

"I had to come see it off", she said, patting a large metal box covered with switches. "And you too, of course. Feel good to finally put this baby to use?"

Sam smiled. "Let's just hope it actually works."

"It'll work." Noli was confident.

"I'm just happy to get off the planet", said Jack, rolling his eyes.

"Indeed." Teal'c turned to Noli and explained: "It is unusual for SG-1 to be earth-bound for such an extended period of time."

"'Earth-bound'", she said, "I like that. It's pretty. The whole extended meaning of it", she added when she saw nobody really understood what she meant. Daniel smiled to himself. There it was again, a little glimpse of something hiding underneath the annoying surface.

"Yeah, well", said Jack, "It's pretty boring."

The gate was activated and Noli admired the shimmering event horizon. "So beautiful", she said in a low voice, mostly to herself. The russian team went through, and Noli turned to the SG-1 making their way up to the gate with the MALP. "Good luck", she said, adding: "And don't jump the switches." Sam giggled at the incomprehensible inside joke. Jack rolled his eyes, Teal'c and Daniel exchanged amused glances and they were off.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

After four days the teams returned. The information they had gathered wasn't conclusive, but there seemed to be an intricate but regular pattern of energy being emmitted from somewhere beneath the surface of the planet. Scouting the vicinity hadn't lead to any discoveries, and Sam was suggesting that any action in that place had been, or was, going on underground. They had left the measuring equipment to gather more data while they went back to the base.

The atmosphere during the mission had been strained, the russian team members mostly tending to themselves, talking amongst each other around the camp at night. Jack's diplomatic skills didn't help the situation, though the others had done their best to act inclusive to their colleagues. Most of them were willing to partake in the work, but they weren't friendly and seemed to find it hard to accept being supervised by the americans. Daniel wanted to put at least some of it down to the language barriers, but Jack had made up his mind: the russians just sucked. If Hammond wanted him to drag people from Russia around on other planets he would have to give him some that at least did as they were told, without looking like they wanted to kill him.

When Daniel returned to his office he rejoiced to see it empty again. Apparently Noli had finally moved in to the room around the hall and he had his place to himself again. He roamed around his bookshelves for a while, looking for a particular source - the scratches on the rock SG-9 had brought might resemble something he'd seen before, if they were at all residue from writing, and he wanted to check it out. He found the book, sat down and put his feet up on the edge of the desk and started turning pages, reveling in the peace and quiet.

He found the right place and started reading up on the old language.

Finally, it was easy to concentrate again. Nice and quiet.

He looked at pictures of symbols. It was very interesting.

He looked at pictures of other symbols.

It sure was quiet.

He looked around the office.

He looked in the book.

He looked at his watch.

Damn, it was quiet.

He turned some pages.

He was pretty sure he didn't have a clock in his office, but even so he could almost hear one ticking. Slowly.

Daniel sighed at himself, gave up and went for a stroll down the hall. To no surprise he ended up outside Noli's new office. The door stood open and he peeked inside. Noli was at her desk, actually looking quite serene. She had somewhere got a hold of a larger wooden chair instead of the usual office ones, and she was sitting with her legs pulled up on one side, leaning on her elbow and tracing a pen across the pages of a densly written notebook. When Daniel cleared his throat she looked up, her face breaking up into a smile as she saw him.

"Heya, you're back. How was it? Come in, share." She waved him over and Daniel pulled up the rejected office seat to the opposite side of her desk. "Everything go ok?"

"Yeah, I guess. We didn't find anything on the surface but your gadgets seem to be working." Daniel looked around. This place looked different than his. The walls had some sort of terracotta color and there was a rug on the floor. The light in there was warm and bright.

"Place looks nice", he said.

Noli beamed. "They let me paint it. Or, they obeyed me when I told them to paint it."

Daniel looked up. "Lighting's good."

Noli glanced at the ceiling. "I guess."

"My room's a little darker."

"Yeah, I noticed, actually." There was a short pause.

"So, what are you doing now?"

"Oh, I'm, trying to find the origin of the markings on that rock from PX3-110. Got something similar in an old book." A second passed. "I should... probably..." he mumbled and started getting up, gesturing towards the door. Noli leaned forward.

"Can I see it?" she asked. "The book I mean. I already saw the rock."

Daniel lit up. "Sure, I'll go get it." Noli smiled and he went to retrieve the book. When he came back she had cleared a little space opposite of her and he sat down and showed her what he'd been looking at.

They talked for a little while, then Daniel noticed something interesting among the pictures, something that might be a lead. He stopped and stared at the page for a moment, tracing one of the markings with his finger.

"Hey, can I borrow a pen?" he asked.

"Sure." Noli handed him one of her pens and found an unused notebook to go with it. As Daniel fell into deep concentration she smiled and returned to her own work.

When an hour or so had passed Daniel looked up from his notes and glanced around. Something was different. None of that disturbing fidgeting had been going on for a while. He glanced over at Noli. She was altering her attention between her notes and her laptop, making changes and typing things in. But the pencil in her hand wasn't tapping on anything. She wasn't shifting around and she hadn't interrupted him with questions the whole time. He let out a silent snort of surprise. Apparently she did have the ability to focus for more than ten minutes at a time. A small hope rose in him. Maybe this was the way she normally acted. Then he started wondering what it was that had made her so edgy the days before. Perhaps she had just been nervous about the project. Though she hadn't seemed to be when she talked about it. OD-ing on caffeine maybe, but then again he hadn't actually seen her drink any coffee at all. Could she be coming off drugs?

Noli looked up and saw Daniel staring at her with a thoughful look. She stared back.

"What?"

Daniel blinked. "Oh, um... nothing. I was just... thinking. Noli smiled at bit doubtfully.

"Time for a brake maybe?" she suggested.

"Yeah..." Daniel wrinkled his eyebrows. "I'm gonna go down and have another look at the rock." He got up, looked around at the desk and then motioned to tear the pages he'd been writing on out of the notebook. Noli waved her hand. "Take the whole thing. I've got more." He thanked her and left, wondering what kind of strange impression he'd just given.

Noli smiled to herself as she continued rearranging formulas. She liked these people. Both Sam and Daniel seemed very kind and open-minded, but also Jack and Teal'c had something about them she found sympathetic, even though she hadn't talked to them much. It would be fun to get to know them better - she only wished she was able to work fully out in the open.

* * *

A/N: Reviews are love!


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

After the debriefing the next morning Jack was annoyed. The russians had shown nothing but silent contempt during the mission, and now it felt like they were taking credit for work they hadn't actually been needed for. Their captain's bragging about how they were every bit as skilled as the other SG-teams and how they should be allowed out on missions of their own bugged him like crazy. He went down to the gym facilities to work some of the frustration off.

Changed, Jack thought some running might clear his head and headed for the treadmills. There were only two in the humble facility and one was already taken. He winced; he'd rather have been alone. Though, on closer inspection, this might turn out interesting - the person huffing and puffing away on the treadmill was doctor Brennan. Maybe he could use this opportunity to probe her a little bit. He got on the other treadmill and nodded at her.

"Hey!" she puffed, her face gleaming with sweat.

"Doctor", he greeted, turning his machine on.

"You can call me Noli", she responded. "You don't have to, but you can." From the looks of it, she'd already been running for some time. Jack would have to get some well-directed questions in before she left if he were to make her reveal anything fishy.

"So, doctor", he said and regretted the choice, because it had come out sounding more harsch than he intended, and added "...Noli." After all, she hadn't done anything to him. Yet. "Let me ask you, what was it that attracted you to SGC anyway?" He turned up the pace and started jogging.

"Well", the scientist panted, "it all sounded kinda blurry at first, but I've always been into astrophysics as well as quantum, so I took a chance, and after the initial interviews, when Hammond swore me to secrecy and told me about the project, I just had to do it, you know?"

"Interested in interstellar travel, are ya?" Jack turned his pace up a little.

"Well, sure, who isn't?" Noli turned her pace down a little. She looked dreamily into the air. "Imagine all that unknown stuff out there. All the pieces missing in the periodic table." Jack looked at her with slight confusion. She understood. "That's why it looks completely irregular, with all those empty spaces. It's supposed to be full, all those missing elements exist, we just haven't found them yet."

Jack tilted his chin up. "Oh." He found his train of thought again. "Like to take some of that stuff home, would ya?"

Noli laughed. "I dunno, depends. I think there are incredibly interesting materials out there, if you wanna talk matter and not... alien cultures and such... Like naquadah, it's..." She interrupted herself and her formerly open looking face closed. "It's interesting." She turned the pace down until she came to a stop and got off. "Well. I gotta go. Nice talking to you, Jack. See you later." She smiled and left for the showers.

Jack's eyes narrowed. She hid it well, but there was definitely something this professor chick wasn't being totally honest about. Maybe Teal'c would be up for some light surveillance around the base. He finished his workout and went to see him.

* * *

"I do not understand, O'Neill", said Teal'c to Jack in the cafeteria. "What exactly is it that you suspect doctor Brennan of?"

"It's not that I suspect her of anything, T", Jack whispered loudly, "it's just that I got this feeling. She's up to something, I know it. And I need you to keep an eye on her for me. Can ya do that?"

Teal'c looked down on Jack with an expression resembling contempt. "I can", he answered. He didn't know what Jack was implying doctor Brennan was "up to", but he trusted him, and saw no direct harm in "keeping an eye on her". Personally he had not noticed anything out of the ordinary about her, but then again, they had been in very little contact. Both Daniel Jackson and Major Carter had expressed sympathy towards her, but also somewhat of the same diffuse concern that O'Neill was expressing. Perhaps he had not been as observant as he should.

During the days that followed, Teal'c took special notice in doctor Brennan's whereabouts. She did not seem to tend to any special routines, except arriving around the same time every morning. She would then irregularly move between her office, the offices of Daniel Jackson and Major Carter, and the labs. The uncertainty with which she divided up her workday made it a little difficult to follow her movements, but Teal'c made good use of his skills and the surveillance cameras. A few times his attention caught her wandering around in areas of the base where she had no business, and the last time he made sure to intercept her. She greeted him heartily, revealing no sense of embarrassment that might convey her actions to be knowingly malevolent. He went straight to the point: "Doctor Brennan. What are you doing here?"

"I'm trying to get lost so I can learn to find my way", she answered. He reacted to the phrasing by slightly tilting his head.

"A solution so obvious many would not have considered it."

The woman smiled. "You wanna learn something, start from scratch. All knowledge is stronger when built up from the ground."

"Indeed."

Doctor Brennan looked around. "Anyway, I think I've been here before so I'm pretty much done... Do you wanna get lunch?" Teal'c accepted with a miniscule bow.

"You know you can call me Noli, right?" she said as they headed for the canteen.

* * *

Teal'c's impression of Noli was the same as the others'. After watching her from a distance for a few days, and then spending a little time with her at lunch, he was undecided. In person, she seemed friendly. Honest. Of a slightly philosophical inclination that reminded him of Daniel Jackson. But to her behaviour when not at work there still was something undefinably odd. Her explanation for walking around remote areas of the base was perfectly valid to him, but it was also strange compared to what he would expect from anyone else. Perhaps she was looking for something, and in that case something she did not wish to ask about so as to let no one know of it.

Teal'c's growing suspicions were further established one evening, when he saw Noli in one of the labs where off-world objects where stored in order to be examined. Teal'c had followed her when he noticed she wasn't on her way home and was standing silently in the dark hallway outside, watching. It was after hours and the other staff had left for the day, leaving the room half-lit. Noli had not bothered turning the lights on and was slowly walking along one of the counters littered with rocks and broken artefacts, looking at the things and lazily running her fingers over them as she passed. She stopped at the end of the counter and crouched down - there was the big rock brought back from PX3-110, sitting on the floor. She tilted her head and looked at it attentatively, then raised her hand and placed it firmly on its surface. The expressions on her face changed as the moments passed - it looked as though she was listening to someone speak. Finally she stood up, gave the rock a tiny smile and turned to the door. Teal'c quickly withdrew and watched Noli disappear around the corner, going home.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The following morning the members of SG-1 were having breakfast together in the comissary. Jack was glancing at Teal'c.

"So. Anything?"

"Anything what?" said Daniel, munching on his cereal.

"Indeed you were right, O'Neill. Noli Brennan seems to be hiding something, though of what I cannot be certain."

"See, I told you there's something going on with her." Jack leaned back in his seat.

"What?" Sam looked at them, confused.

"I have been observing Noli Brennan, acting suspicious." Teal'c looked around at them.

"You've been 'observing' her?" Daniel sounded offended.

"Wait, what do you mean she's been acting suspicios?" asked Sam.

"I have seen her on numerous occasions residing in areas she has no business."

Sam made a doubtful face. "So?"

"Think about it", said Jack. "She's been acting real nervous, right Daniel?" Daniel answered "Yeah, but..."

Jack continued: "She's been weird around certain alien stuff," he directed to Sam, "and she's been sneaking around the base in the wee hours of night. What does that tell ya?"

They all went quiet. Separately, these things were nothing. But when Jack put them together like that, maybe he had a point. Maybe there actually was something strange about the professor.

Finally Sam spoke out. "Sir, what exactly are you implying?"

"Yeah Jack, what _are_ you implying?" Daniel didn't like the tone of this conversation.

Jack pursed his lips. "I don't know, you tell me. Maybe she's after something. Maybe she's NID." They all looked at each other. An NID mole, that would be disasterous to the SGC. Not to mention to the many civilizations the NID would not hesitate to ruin in their quest for alien technology.

"So... What do you suggest we do?" said Sam, looking worried. She didn't want these suspicions to be real and her new friend turn out to be an enemy, but she knew they had to take them seriously.

Jack shrugged one shoulder. "Keep your enemies closer."

The rest of the day went by with an uncomfortable feeling within them all. Daniel kept in his office and moped, even though he knew Jack was right. He just didn't want there to be anything to the allegations. At least Noli should be given the benefit of a doubt before it was brought up with general Hammond, and Jack agreed to let Sam do some research first. At the end of the day she had come up with nothing - though everyone knew when dealing with the NID this didn't mean anything.

* * *

When Sam and Noli came to the comissary the next day the others were already there, poking in their chicken casserole. They sat down and Sam felt the slight tension among the others, but strained to push it aside and be cheerful. Noli didn't seem to notice anything unusal as she was buttering her bread, listening to Jack complaining about the russian team which had been assigned to theirs again during the last mission, a diplomatic visit to a rural civilisation.

"Look at 'em!" he hissed and nodded towards a table in the other end of the canteen, where two of his adversaries were sitting, looking glum. "They're just waiting to take over the whole command." The others were trying their best to engage in natural chitchat while secretly paying attention to Noli. Noli herself was smiling at Jack's banter and started digging in to the lunch.

"You don't think they're just incredibly jealous of your merits, Jack?" she said gleefully and stuck a mouthfull of casserole in her mouth.

"Oh, I don't know..." started Jack, and wrinkled his eyebrows when Noli's face changed. She had gone perfectly still, and her eyes were wide with disgust or horror, Jack wasn't sure. Then she spat the food out on her plate and stared at it for a second.

"I know it's bad, but..." Daniel began. Noli suddenly slammed her palm down on the mess on her plate, looked up and yelled: "No!"

They all stared at her. She reached out and slapped the fork out of Jack's hand that had stopped mid-air, splattering casserole over his shirt. "Don't eat this!"

"Noli, what..." someone started as she threw herself across the table, gathering all their plates, going "Do not, do not, do not eat" in a very stern voice. When she had the plates secure on her own tray, she sat still for a moment, slowly let her breath out and then looked up at them.

"I'm not crazy", she said, looking a little desperate. Her face took on something of a sadness and she seemed to debate with herself on how to proceed. The others were all waiting impatiently. Noli looked down and her lips moved slightly as she tried to find the right words.

"There's, uh, chromium in it. Hexavalent... chromium..." Her voice faded as she met the incredulous faces around her. She turned impatient herself. "Oh for god's sake, just trust me on this. Go to the infirmary. Take this with you." She shoved one of the plates out on the table.

"I didn't taste anything funny", said Jack hesitantly.

"No, you wouldn't, it's tasteless." Noli sounded resigned. "Now just go."

"Sir, if she's right", said Sam, "Hexavalent chromium is very poisonous."

"And may I ask how the hell you know it's in the food?" asked Jack. Noli closed her eyes.

"Like I said, _please _just trust me." She looked beggingly at them. Jack shrugged.

"Alright. We'll check it out. But you're coming with us."

"Sure. Whatever." She and Jack got up, followed by the others looking very confused. They left, Noli carrying one of the plates with her, none of them noticing the eyes following them.

* * *

A/N: Finally something's happening! I promise it'll be better from now on. Maybe.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

"The chromium concentrations in the food were pretty high, from what I can tell doctor Brennan just saved your lives." Janet was distributing antacids to the thoroughly stomach pumped and quite defeated SG-1 team. "In the long run anyway. What I don't get is how it ended up in your chicken casserole. We didn't find any traces of it in the rest of it, just the batch your servings came from."

"Yeah. That's what I wanna know", said Jack, looking steadily at Noli while dialing security. Noli was sitting on a cot dangling her feet, recovering from her own precautonary stomach pumping. She gave Jack a hurt look when the security guards arrived but went with them without complaining.

"I don't know what to think, Jack", said Daniel, looking at the floor. "I mean, she knew, but if she's behind it, then why would she say anything?"

"Maybe she took to us. Changed her mind." Jack made a theatrical gesture.

Sam rubbed her throat. "I don't know... I don't want to distrust her any more than you do, but you gotta admit where this is heading." She slumped down. "But why would she do that? Why try to poison us, and then save us?"

"Perhaps she is not the only one involved", suggested Teal'c. This scenario worried them all, but also lit a glimpse of hope that maybe their new colleague at least was the lesser of two evils.

General Hammond was deeply concerned. Doctor Brennan had contributed greatly to the work of the SGC and he had hoped she would stay on after the project with the energy reading was over. When Jack called on him and asked for an emergency hearing concerning the fact that SG-1 had just suffered attempted poisoning and possible murder, and that the scientist had something to do with it, he was shocked. There had been no indications, neither during the recrutation process nor after, that she was in any way affiliated with the NID or any other hostile organisations. None the less, the recent events clearly pointed at her and it had to be investigated. The base was locked down and he did what he could to find anything out quickly, and then held hearings with them all. After listening to the statements of the team members one by one he called them all into the briefing room.

"I know this is unorthodox, but as there is no clear evidence pointing to doctor Brennan as the one who attempted to harm you, and we've been unable to link her in any way to the NID, I've given in to a demand of hers in order to get anything out of her at all. You see, she's promptly refused to speak to anyone about this. Anyone, but this group, that is." He pushed a button on the intercom. "Show doctor Brennan in, please." The team looked at each other. She wanted to talk to them? To say what? Come up with some fantastic excuse? Did she expect to get away with this by refusing to talk to anyone but her friends? Tension was high as Noli was let into the room and took a seat.

"Doctor", said general Hammond. "Perhaps you would like to finally shed some light on what the hell is going on here."

Noli clasped her hands together in front of her and leaned on her elbows. She looked around at them, hesitantly. Finally she spoke.

"You guys are used to 'weird', right?" No one answered and she continued. "I guess you're wondering why might have been acting a little... odd. Slapping food around and such. Sneaking around the base pawing alien stuff." She glanced at Teal'c with the shadow of a smile. Teal'c unnoticably raised an eyebrow, very surprised that she should have noticed him watching her at all.

"Yes", said Jack, not in a good mood," We are. Cut to the chase, professor."

"Did you put the chromium in the food?" said Daniel to the table.

"No." She looked firmly at him.

"Then how the hell did you know about it?" said Jack. "Just admit you're some rogue NID so we can kick you out and get this over with."

Noli looked confused.

"I'm what now? No, listen." She opened her mouth and unclasped her hands and froze in that position for a second, trying to find where to start. She turned to Jack."Do you remember when I talked about how everything in the world is humming?" Jack did, but he certainly didn't understand how that could be relevant right now. Neither did Sam, Daniel or Teal'c and they were growing unpatient, but they let her continue. She looked at them to see if they understood what she was talking about. "That everything has its particular frequency, vibrating?"

Sam stared at her.

"Yeah...?"

"Well it's basically the reason I got into physics. I had to." Noli leaned on her elbows, holding up her hands to emphasize the words. She spoke slowly and precauriously. "See, when I was a kid..." _Oh for crying out loud_, thought Jack. Sam's brow was wrinkled with irritation but Daniel and Teal'c were listening closely. "...it took me a long time to realise, that, uh, not everyone can actually _feel_ it." There was a pause. Noli looked around at them with a worried expression.

"What exactly are you saying, doctor?" said general Hammond. Noli sighed quietly.

"I'm saying exactly that. The chromium - I felt it." She turned to Daniel. "You haven't gotten around to x-raying that rock yet, have you?"

Daniel glanced around. "No, not really..." He'd been so busy with the scratches on the surface he hadn't thought about it.

"There's a mechanical device inside of it. The overlay is really brittle, you just have to crack it open." The faces around her grew more confused as she continued. "Teal'c. First impression. 'Hey, this guy has a new element in him.'" Sam thought back to their first encounter and how Noli had reacted to what they assumed to be his exterior. This didn't mean anything, she had learnt everything about the Jaffa within the first days here. Although, it would account for what she did the first time she saw the gate... And the rock, and the chromium. But it was crazy!

"Daniel", Noli continued, "I'm sorry, but certain kinds of plastic make me - _very_ - restless." She gestured with her hand to point out the words. Daniel looked at her for a moment as his mind put the pieces together. In his office she had been jittery. In her own office she had been perfectly relaxed. What was different, apart from the superior lighting?

"The chair", he mumbled. His eyes widened a bit. "You switched chairs. That's all you did." Noli's eyebrows arched in confirmation. "Happy as a clam around anything organic", she said. Daniel let out a surprised chuckle. "But how- Why-" he studdered.

"Not to mention 'really?'" said Jack, definitely not convinced. Sam interjected:

"So what you're saying is that you can somehow pick up on, what, energy emissions on a nanolevel?"

Noli looked at her.

"Remember working on the material scanner, how you said that I was 'feeding frequenzies into the registry as if I knew them by heart'?"

Sam stared back. There was no deception buried in the depth of Noli's eyes, no hard shell protecting her true intentions, just the tired look of someone trying to convince her of an impossible fact.

Noli continued.

"So yeah, pretty much. I don't know how or why, but I just... feel it. On my skin."

Teal'c spoke out. "This kind of ability is unheard of in any cultures I know of."

"You do realise how this sounds", said Sam.

Noli half-closed her eyes. "Oh yeah." She straightened and put her hand on the table. "Table's pine with an two millimeter aluminum lining, it's got 18 titanium screwes - why they would use those I do not know - two in each corner and ten in the legs." She made a short pause. "And there's a quarter stuck under that one." She nodded to the end of the table indicating the tableleg underneath.

After a second of incredulous silence Sam had a thought. "Wait, you're not in direct contact with those things, how can you feel things that you're not actually touching?"

"It sort of echoes through. One thing is in contact with the other and the other is in contact with me."

"Like a sonar." Sam's natural curiosity was creeping up on her. "How far does it reach? I mean how much cohesive matter can you go through?"

"I don't know, so far the only obstacle has been time. If I had enough time and energy I could probably get through this whole building. Then again I don't know how much spare room there is in my brain for this..." They were interrupted when the table jerked, and then Jack dove up with the quarter in his hand. They all stared at each other for a second.

"X-ray rock?" said Jack.

"Yeah", answered Daniel and everyone got up and dashed for the labs.

--

* * *

A/N: Wow, it took forever to get here! From now on there'll be more interesting relationship stuff and better one-liners.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

"I can't believe it. This is amazing." Sam was marvelling at the results of the x-ray after processing the uncanny accuracy with which Noli had described the contents of a few sealed containers. There really was something in that rock, to the best of her knowledge mostly resembling some kind of machine.

"So... You're like the human ultrasound", said Jack, humbly underneath the friendly sarcasm.

"Guess so." Noli had been patiently suffering the process leaning against the desk. She looked around and asked: "So that's it? You really believe me?" She didn't dare believe that they did just yet. Sam shrugged in amazement.

"I don't see how you could know all this if it wasn't true. Plus, it explains a lot", she said, thinking of Noli's strange manners. "I mean..." She got a little worried as she realised what she was saying. Noli smiled sadly.

"Normally I'm very good at hiding it, but circumstances have been unusual... I know I've been a little weird with the unnatural attraction to alien objects and all... But you don't know what it's like to get a chance to get aquainted with a new material. It's like adding a piece to a huge puzzle." She looked to Sam. "I also know I've been elusive about certain things, in my research. That's because so much of it has been about figuring out what questions to go with the answers I already had."

Sam thought of what Noli said about them working on the material scanner. That was the one strange thing she had noticed about Noli's methods in the lab - it just seemed to go too fast.

"You really were filling the registry without checking the meter first", she said.

"Yeah. I felt kinda sorry that I had to let you go on doing that when I could have done it all in a jiffy", Noli replied. "Such a waste of time. I really was just trying to get lost", she then said to Teal'c, who smiled in recognition. The others looked a little confused. Then Daniel thought of something.

"If you're... aware, of everything all the time... Like seeing in another sense, I mean you can shut your eyes and you won't be aware of what's around you but can you... switch this off and on? For example I imagine it would get frustrating feeling your clothes all the time."

Noli smiled. "The sensibility is mostly concentrated to my hands. Plus I can tune out, things like clothes and, you know, the floor, I don't feel. I can if I want to..." Noli's gaze became distant for a moment and then suddently she went "Damn it!" and started tugging at the side of her t-shirt. "I just bought this", she said and poked a finger through a hole in the hemline. "But yeah, it would be overwhelming if I was 'on' all the time. It's like tinnitus I guess, the more you listen for it the louder you hear it."

"Can you detect any matter?" Teal'c was starting to sense the tactical possibilities of this strange ability. So was Jack, who quickly looked at him and then turned to Noli with an expecting look.

"As far as I can tell, yes. Of course there's the matter of identifying what I'm sensing too... it didn't come with a manual. I've been spending a - _lot_ - of time straightening that out." Noli was relaxing more and more, her face taking on a shine. "Oh, living tissue. I can't 'hear' living tissue. I think there's too much going on in there, it's so busy it... overloads my system and it goes quiet."

"Guess that's a relief", said Daniel, thinking how distracting it would be to be aware of the molecular structure of anyone you touched.

"I'll do without it." Noli smiled brightly. "I don't think you can imagine what this feels like. I mean, I never try to tell anyone about this. Do you know how discredited I would be if I did? They'd lock me up. Flush all my work down the drain. But you're all looking like it's everyday stuff." The feeling of being taken seriously - and treated like she was normal – had Noli soaring. Her new colleagues smiled.

"We're just glad you're not NID", said Sam.

"Yeah, what is that?" Noli wondered.

"Oh, just a covert organisation of scumbags trying to get their hands on whatever they think serves their purposes at the cost of innocent lives," Jack explained casually.

"And you all thought I was a part of that?" Noli's expression faded into disappointment. Spirits sank all around as they felt a twinge of shame. It seemed unfair to ever have distrusted her, now that they knew what she had really been hiding.

"Yeah, I guess we did," confessed Daniel uncertainly.

"Wow." Noli looked at the floor. "I've had people think I'm crazy before... but no one's ever thought I was evil." Her voice was low and sad. That was it, Daniel thought, her confidence in them was forever damaged and she would never trust them again. Goodbye, any chance of a friendship, hello, chilly work conversations. A glance around the room told him the others were thinking something similar.

Noli looked up.

"You guys are so buying me drinks tonight."


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

While investigations were furiously being conducted at the base general Hammond let SG-1 and the doctor go, with an encouragment to 'be on a look-out'. Jack and Sam went home to change, and Daniel took Noli directly to their usual hang-out. Teal'c had stayed behind to catch up on his kelnoreem, but after suffering wild protests vowed to join them later.

Noli plopped down at a table and sighed, happy to have a good end to a very long day. Daniel stayed up and asked: "What are you having?"

Noli closed her eyes. "Beer. Beer is good."

"Beer is good", he repeated and went to the bar. Noli leaned back and relaxed, reveling in the warm, fluffy feeling in her stomach. The outlook of being able to act completely like herself around at least a few people filled her with hope. Hope for normal relationships and for finally being able to let her guard down. No hiding a big piece of who she was. No careful rearrangements of facts. No irrational behavior she couldn't explain. Just her, open and accepted. She looked over at the man ordering drinks for them at the bar. He'd been nothing but nice to her, even when she knew she'd been getting on his nerves. And when he learned just why she had been, he seemed to simply accept it. No big deal. Of course she had been agitated by the loud humming of the PVC in her chair, how natural. Noli giggled to herself. She had expected a little more disbelief, but then again, Daniel had seemed to be more in tune with the universe than most from the very first day, making him more probable to accept things as they were. She'd enjoyed talking to him already then; his open-hearted enthusiasm unabashedly shining through and touching her.

Daniel returned and sat down, handing her one of the two cold bottles he was carrying. She smiled thankfully at him.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome." Daniel had a sip from his bottle. "So... You're not mad, that, you know, we thought you were... evil?"

Noli shook her head. "Nah, I understand. I mean all circumstances pointed to one of two options and the right one you didn't have much chance to guess." She had a sip from her bottle, the cool beer tingling in her throat. "Or three options if you count the one where I'm crazy."

"But you're not."

"I'm not." She gave Daniel a mischevious look. "My little friend on the other hand... Can't speak for him."

Daniel laughed. "You know, I always had my doubts about him."

Noli put on a concerned look.

"I think it's the wild, staring eyes that put people off."

Daniel wrinkled his forehead.

"I didn't notice he had eyes."

"Oh, right..." Noli smiled. "I'm sorry I was bugging you so much, I was going kinda crazy myself."

"Yeah..." Daniel was resting his forearms on the table, picking at the lable on his bottle. He looked at her and asked: "What's it like? Can you describe it, at all...?"

Noli softly pursed her lips, her eyes looking up to the side.

"Certain things have strange effects on me. Not many, but a few, like PVC as you've painfully learned, and silver - I love silver jewellery, but if I forget to take it off before I go to sleep I have nightmares. And I have no idea why that is, I can't... analyze inwards, so to speak. But generally..." Noli struggled to find a good way of explaining her personal experience of the world. "I feel these... sensations. And it's like when you're learning a new language. At first there's the technical phase, where you learn a new word, you translate it and you know that ok, shekarim means darling. When you see shekarim, in your head you'll still translate it into darling to understand it. But after a while, it gets integrated with you, you don't need to translate it to understand it anymore, you just do. And the more words you learn the quicker it goes. So only instead of seeing a written word and knowing what it means, with pretty much all matter that I've gotten my hands on, literally, I know what the sensation it generates 'means'. And it _feels _like... music, a little bit. Rythms. Vibrations. So subtle they're just an untangible whisper." Noli looked at Daniel a little hopelessly. "Do you understand what I mean at all?"

Daniel looked back with a humorous glint. "I do, actually. Not... exactly what you're experiencing but I get the big picture." He made a pause, then had to ask: "Shekarim?" Noli chuckled.

"Turkish. I don't know, it just came to mind. Anyway, I know I sound like a total hippie but it makes it so obvious how everything is connected." They grinned at each other.

"I guess it's made your line of work a little easier?"

"Oh yeah. Hence the... youth." Noli gestured circles around her face. "I've always been a suspiciously quick study. And I _know_ people always wonder." Daniel smiled a little sheepishly. Noli leaned back in her chair and enjoyed a silent pause, then said: "I had no idea just how huge a relief this would be. I'm afraid you're all gonna have to suffer a whole lot of weird comments from now on."

Daniel felt rather curious as to what they might be. He assumed Noli had a world of thus far unspoken observations. At that thought he felt a pang of sympathy towards her.

"It must have been isolating. Not being able to just speak out about what you're sensing."

Noli grew serious. "It has. It's been lonely in my world." Then her face turned sunny again. "Not so much anymore though." She lifted her bottle. "A toast. To beer bottles. They're cold. They're brittle. And they sound like a reagge festival in the woods." She clinked her bottle to his and looked him in the eyes with a big grin, making him feel privy to something completely new and secret.

A couple of beers later they had gone through the humming properties of everything within easy reach, discussed the origin of the egyptian anch and started building a three-dimensional name sign for Jack with sugar cubes. Daniel tried to place the last piece in the c but fumbled and it fell apart. Noli faked deep disappointment and they giggled stupidly. Daniel was, he realised, getting a little drunk. So was she. He chuckled and asked:

"So... 'Noli'. What, uh...", gesturing with his beer to indicate asking about her name. Noli winced.

"'Mag-no-li-a'", she over-pronounced, in a voice that clearly had no respect for the name. "It's such a stupid name!" she moaned.

"No, no..." Daniel comforted hesitantly. "It's beautiful." He took a drink. "Magnolias are beautiful. They smell good."

"It's my foremost trait. I smell good." Noli took a drink and looked at him over the bottle with twinkling eyes.

"I said magnolias. You probably smell like... beer..." he said, raising the bottle to his lips again. Noli stared at him for half a second, then burst out giggling. Daniel followed. When Jack arrived a minute later they were both in a fit of laughter. He stopped at the table for a moment to look at them, and the heap of sugar cubes spelling something like "jabl".

"I see you started without me?"

Daniel tried to calm down. "No, no...", he said, having another drink.

"No no", Noli agreed. They both looked back at each other with blank faces and kept negating Jack's allegation until they burst out giggling again. Jack rolled his eyes.

"I'll be at the bar."

Sam arrived with Teal'c a short while later. They waved to Noli and Daniel, got a pitcher of beer and one of water at the bar and brought them and Jack back to the table. Teal'c had also found a bowl of peanuts that he proudly sat down in front of him. Noli let out an impressed "Ooh" and shot out a hand to grab them. A stern look from Teal'c stopped her in her track, but then he resigned and pushed the bowl onto the middle of the table for public access. Noli looked smug as she munched away on the nuts, though Jack deemed them unsanitary. Friendly banter went on for a while, with amused glances from Sam and Teal'c when they noticed that both Noli and Daniel were a little tipsy. It was unusual to see Daniel this way, he didn't go out often and when he did he didn't drink much. Sam thought it was nice to see him relaxed, taking a well deserved break from the constant worries of the world. He was always so concerned about the well-being of others, seeming to forget about his own. Actually it had been a while since any of them had had a normal night out like ordinary people. They should do this more often. Perhaps having Noli among them would bring a sense of normality they had lacked, her being earth bound and having an actual life outside of work. Maybe it would rub off. After all she was the one that had made them come out tonight. Sam's thoughts lingered superficially on the events that had led them here, but she pushed the them aside, deciding she didn't want to think about trouble right now. They were under constant death threat anyway, from one place or the other, and she too deserved a break. Let general Hammond fix it.

"Come on, let's put something on the jukebox", she said to Noli, whose eyebrows shot up in agreement but didn't articulate much as her mouth was full of peanuts. She snatched a few more in front of Teal'c as they got up and followed Sam to the jukebox at the other end of the room. There was a tiny space cleared around it, serving as a dance floor for anyone who had the incling, which normally didn't happen until much later at night. This evening it would have been empty in any case, as they were virtually alone in the bar. The two women bent over the machine and searched the lists for anything recognizable. When Noli had finally cleared her mouth she asked:

"What music do you like?"

Sam shrugged. "I like a lot of stuff. It's hard to pin it down to one genre."

"Yeah, music is tricky that way. Hard to describe something as irrational as taste in music."

Sam gave the jukebox a crooked smile. "Like 'dancing about architecture', huh?"

Noli smiled at her. "Actually, I think it's fully possible to dance about architecture." She straightened and said rythmically: "This - saddle roof - is very - dramatic", her upper body illustrating the statement with a few well chosen twists and arm flailings. Sam laughed and turned back to the jukebox.

"Here", she said and pushed a button. The notes of a classic motown song started playing.

"Good choise", appraised Noli and took a few steps out on the floor, hips swaying. Sam followed and they started strutting their stuff, pretending to be cool and laughing at each other.

"So, been having a good time?" asked Jack when the women had left. Daniel bobbed his head.

"Sure." He downed the last of his fourth beer. "Did you know that beer bottles feel like a reagge festival in the woods?" He studied the bottle with a troubled look. "I don't know if there's a difference between if it's full or not... I suppose there would be, since the constitution of the whole object would be different... Jack?"

Jack, who was sitting opposite of Daniel, had his attention diverted to something else. Beyond Daniel was the rest of the room, at the other end of the room was the jukebox, and at the jukebox was - Carter. Dancing.

Carter was dancing. She had her arms stretched out in front of her, cheekishly rolling her shoulders and swaying her hips to the side. Jack watched the outline of her long legs, rounded backside and curved hips and waist as they moved to the music as if in slow motion. She was wearing those leather pants that gave her a hot dangerous look, and her arms and neck were left bare by the simple t-shirt that fit snugly over her chest. Her milky-white complexion seemed to shine all on its own in the dusky locale. Jack's gaze trailed her slender arms and hands, went up along her neck and settled on her face that seemed to be smiling at some blurry figure in the proximity. He couldn't quite see her wide, blue eyes from this distance, but he knew they would be sparkling. He swallowed. He wasn't supposed to be looking at her like this. It was completely inappropriate and he didn't want to go there. But something had him hypnotized, unable to tear his eyes from her. Then a voice in the distance registered in his brain, slowly bringing him back to the present.

"Anyway I think... What are you looking at?" Daniel turned around so see what Jack was seeing. The girls were dancing to an old motown song he recognized. "Son of a Preacher Man" or something similar. He remembered it being on Noli's long playlists because it was the first time he had seen anyone type to a beat. He turned back to Jack. "You wanna go dance?" he asked.

"No", Jack answered sourly. He recalled what Daniel had been yapping about. "What are you talking about, 'reagge festival'? You sure you should be drinking any more of that?"

Daniel was pouring himself another beer from the pitcher into Sam's glass. "Jack", he said calmly, "someone tried to poison us today. Someone tried to give us cancer." He spat the last word out. "I'm tired of always being on the verge of death and I'm going to get wasted." He raised the glass to Jack and Teal'c and took a couple of deep gulps.

Jack figured that was as good a reason as any to let Daniel drink until he passed out if he wanted, and to join him at that. But he settled for moderation; as the commanding officer he had to keep up appearances at work tomorrow.

Sam and Noli were returning for a breather. Noli arrived at Daniel's side a little out of breath.

"Hey", she said and rested with her hand on his shoulder. Daniel was downing another big sip of beer, but felt the upcoming request before Noli made it and handed her the glass before he swallowed.

"Thanks." Noli had a thirsty drink herself. Sam watched the glass switch hands.

"Is that my glass?" she asked a bit disapprovingly. Daniel happily affirmed and Noli handed it to her. It had lipmarks and fingerprints from three people now. "It's alright, keep it." Sam poured herself some water from Teal'c's pitcher instead. Noli set the glass down after another sip and suddenly Daniel winced voilently.

"Ow!"

Noli had pushed her thumb into his shoulder, not very hard but in the right spot.

"Triggerpoints", she said. "You-need-to-relax." She shook his shoulder in rythm with the words.

"That's what I'm trying to do", he answered, sluring a bit. Noli leant down and whispered "Good!" loudly in his ear. Then she turned to Teal'c.

"Teal'c! Dance!" They had prepared the jukebox with quarters and it was going on its second song. "Yeah, come on Teal'c", Sam joined in. To the girls' enjoyment he actually got up and let himself be stiffly led around.

Jack watched the trio return to the dancefloor. Sam looked like she was having fun. He hadn't seen her outside of work for ages, it was different. It told of something else, some other part of life that didn't involve life threatening adventures and military ranking. Normality. A place where there were sunday dinners and walks in the park and things were allowed to develop as they would.

Jack looked down and nailed his eyes to the table. He couldn't sit here and ogle Sam like this, it was no good. The best thing to do was just to get out of the whole situation.

"I'm going home, Danny. You have a good night now. Don't do anything I wouldn't do." Jack got up.

"You're leaving already?" Daniel was surprised.

"Yeah. Tell the guys hey." Jack left without any further explanation and Daniel was left to his own drunken musings, which in itself wasn't too bad. A few minutes into his ponderings about the development of alcoholic beverages in different worlds he felt Noli's hand land on his shoulder again, but this time without digging into his sore muscles.

"Hey! Whatcha doing here all by yourself? Where's Jack?" She sank into the seat next to him and grabbed Jack's unfinished beer. Daniel shrugged.

"He went home. I dunno."

"Oh. Well, then he won't mind." She took a deep gulp and was run through by a shiver as the cold liquid tickled her throat. Funny how easily beer was sliding down this evening, she thought. She also thought quickly about the fact that she'd be feeling the consequences tomorrow, but she really didn't care. It had been a long couple of weeks filled with the thrill of getting to know new materia combined with the worries of having her secret revealed, and someone had tried to severely hurt her new friends, and herself in the process. She could still remember the foul feeling of rancid metal in her mouth from lunch and was going to spare no effort to wash it out.

Daniel didn't seem to have a problem downing his drinks either. Noli was perhaps a little hazy on the details, but she knew they were both way ahead of the others. She had the feeling he was carrying just as much, probably much more, weight on his shoulders and wished to drink it away for at least one evening. And if it was so, she certainly didn't begrudge him a little fun. She leaned back and looked at him. He looked far away, like something had caught his thoughts.

"Hey." Noli nudged him with her bottle. He turned his head to her a little too fast and blinked dizzily. "Will you dance with us?" Daniel hesitated. "Come on", she coaxed. "Just a little dance." She stood up and poked his shoulder. "Or I could just stay here and find more myoses." At that outlook Daniel let himself be led to the dancefloor. There wasn't much rythm in him at the moment, but since none of the others were taking their dancing seriously it didn't seem to matter and he actually enjoyed himself.

A few dances later Sam and Teal'c felt it was time to call it a night. Somewhere in their minds lingered the notion that tomorrow would contain hard work and looking over their shoulder until this inside threat was resolved. They both agreed, however, that this little visit to normal land had brought some new welcome energy into them all.

Daniel and Noli stayed on a little bit longer, as they felt the need to have compared at least three different kinds of beer during the evening. Perhaps they were staying just a little too late, drinking just a little too much, but their conversation was just too interesting to abandon, filled as it were with silly word play and snorting giggles. Finally though, they also called it a night and went home.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

The next morning Noli was dragging her chair into Daniel's office. Daniel himself was face down on his desk, his head resting heavily on his folded arms. He came to when he heard someone come in and looked up with a tormented look on his face.

"Hey", he croaked. "You don't like your office anymore?"

Noli's face wrinkled up in disbelief. "Do you know how bright it is in there?" she whined.

"Yeah... About that, do you mind turning that light off?" Daniel shielded his eyes from the meagre spotlights that lit his bookshelves. Noli made an affirmative grunt and flicked the switch, leaving the room half-lit, before she proceeded into the room and placing her chair in front of Daniel. She collapsed into it and sat very still for a moment.

"So how you doin'?" she then said in a dark, new yorkish voice. Daniel smiled in spite of himself. He ungracefully rested his face in his hand.

"I'm great. If great means wishing things would stop moving around so you can fully focus on the railroad spikes in your head."

"What the hell did we do last night? And why?" Noli looked upset, then closed her eyes and sat very still again.

"As I recall it, you were the one who insisted we make a chart of bitterness versus carbonisation." Noli snorted loudly, still with her eyes closed. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a wrinkled napkin, full of incoherent notes.

"Here you go, my friend. Our research."

"You saved it?" Daniel sat up and took the napkin. He turned it about and tried to understand how it was meant to be read. Noli had, apart from the shaky diagrams and calculations drawn little things along the side - some stars and hearts, the usual phonepad doodles, and two little figures with Daniel's and Noli's names under them. The ink had bled out a bit, but one could still see the details that were meant to distinguish them both from any other stick figures: Daniel's glasses, Noli's ponytail, the basic outline of their clothes. It was a silly, childish drawing that for some reason instilled a comforting feeling in him. He carefully eavened out the creases on the napkin with his fingers and glanced up at Noli. She had layed her head down on the table and was sighing deeply. Daniel smiled a little crooked smile and folded the napkin up and put it in the top drawer of his desk. Then he folded his arms and layed his head down on them to rest for a little while.

A deep voice woke him up from his painridden slumber. Teal'c was standing in the door, peering into the dusk.

"Daniel Jackson."

Noli inarticulately went "Sch" and her arm flew out and waved at him to go away. Daniel pulled himself together and sat up.

"Yeah", he answered and tried to adjust his glasses. Teal'c had a slight air of disapproval on his face, but the amusement was predominant.

"Are you alright?"

"Sure, Teal'c, never better", said Daniel tiredly. "What's up?"

Teal'c turned to Noli. "And you, Noli Brennan?" Noli turned her head so she could peek at him without having to lift it.

"I'm so hung over... I have to sit down", she slured. If Teal'c had moved a muscle, he would have looked confused.

"You are already sitting down."

Noli mumbled "God" and turned her head back.

Daniel was feeling a bit impatient, just wishing this day would be over soon. Preferably without him having to do anything or go anywhere. He closed his eyes hard, pinching the base of his nose and asked: "Was there anything you wanted, or...?"

Teal'c seemed to recall his business. "General Hammond has summoned a meeting. He has news as to what took place yesterday."

"Do I have to go?" Noli's voice was thick. Teal'c gave her a look and she straightened up, sighing. "Alright. Come one, Daniel, you can lean on me." She pushed herself up from the desk and offered him her arm. Daniel chuckled in spite of himself and got up, but hooked his own arm under Noli's since she was actually looking worse than he was feeling. She greatfully leaned on him on their way to the briefing room. He was taller and considerably stronger than her and she didn't feel guilty about burdening him with a small portion of her weight, even though he was obviously not feeling tiptop either.

They were met with amused little grins from Jack and Sam as they entered the room. Noli reached for the water pitcher and plopped down in a chair in one sweeping motion, and poured herself a big glass of water that she drank in a few big gulps. She immediatly refilled the glass and emptied it two more times before she sat it down and looked around at the others. She pushed the pitcher over to Daniel and stated:

"Yes. Yes, I am sick. Thank you. Please continue."

"We haven't started yet." Jack's voice had a tone of glee. General Hammond cleared his throat.

"Now that we're all here I think it's time we did. As I'm sure you're aware I've been sparing no resources trying to get to the bottom of this, shall we call it assasination attempt. I know there was no immediate threat to your lives but as I understand it digesting the hexavalent chromium would eventually have lead to serious danger to your health, and even possible death. Not to mention the seriousity of having a saboteur inside the SGC. We've been running background checks and conducting investigations on everyone who may have had access to food deliveries, the kitchen and the labs. We couldn't bind the contamination to any outside source, which would mean that whoever did this manufactured the substance on the base, and no one else that ate in the cafeteria showed sign of being exposed, which pointed to the goal of hurting SG-1 specifically. Luckily for us, the person responsible hasn't been as careful covering their tracks as one would expect. We found the residues from the manufacturing in lab 14, and surveillance tapes show only one person accessing that room that wouldn't normally be there, and that person is captain Ichmanivov." At this, Jack got a grim look on his face. "I knew it!" he muttered. General Hammond continued. "He has shown signs of mental instability before, but he's done a good job of hiding just how far it has taken him lately. Now, it took us a while but he finally admitted to attempting to disengage SG-1 in order for the russian team to gain a more prominent position in the SGC. He also claims to have acted alone, and I've found no evidence saying otherwise. You were the last people to get lunch in the cafeteria that day and he could easily contaminate the food just before you got there. Anyway, I'm happy to conclude that the matter has been resolved and the captain will be courtmarshalled shortly."

"Wow." Sam stared in disbelief. "I can't believe he thought he'd get anywhere with this."

"_I_ can't believe how quickly it was resolved", said Noli. "And the machinery will just take it from here?"

"Yes, well, there is still the problem of explaining how the contamination was discovered. I suspect there would be doubts as to the accuracy of our report. Plus, I'm sure doctor Brennan would prefer it if it was not accounted for on any official records that might in any way get into the wrong hands. Frankly, so would I."

Noli bobbed her head slowly. "You're very right."

"But what could we say? None of us tasted anything wrong, or saw the food getting tampered with." Sam had a troubled look on her face. She understood completely the reluctancy of both general Hammond and Noli to account for the real reason the sabotage was discovered. Anything that strange would inevitably lead to inconvenient questions about the activities in the SGC. But she also didn't want to have to lie in court.

"We could just say I had a hunch", suggested Jack. "'Cause I did."

"Actually, I did taste it. You're just not supposed to be able to... Basically, I tasted _something_, and there just happened to also be hexavalent chrome in there," said Noli, carefully rubbing her temples. "Tell them I'm generally paranoid."

"Very well." General Hammond was content. "Now, if everyone is feeling fit for fight, I suggest you return to your duties. Dismissed."

"How about it, Daniel?" said Jack spitfully. Daniel answered with a dirty look. Sam chuckled.

"Come on guys, we've got that little planet with the orange sky to check out today."

Noli made a face at the thought of an orange sky and was happy she wasn't part of any away team.

"I'll be on the floor", she announced in a thick voice as they left the room. Daniel felt a little envious, but kept quiet and stayed so for most of the remainder of the day.

* * *

A/N: Ridiculous! But now we don't have to worry about that anymore.

To you who've left comments: Thank you! Bribes are always the best way to get quick updates (plus, I need to get cracking at the rest of the story so bring the inspirational reviewing).


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: Chapter 13 gets kind of song-ficy, because apparently, that's how Noli works. If you're interested in what she's playing, it's Alanis Morissette's You Owe Me Nothing In Return. I like it too.

* * *

Chapter 13

A period of relative calm went by. The team had standard missions of exploring and diplomatic meetings, going off world for a few days at a time and coming back for reports and desk work. Noli was quickly proving to be a valuable asset on the base. Apart from doing her own work she got involved in other areas. She got into the habit of talking to all of the teams about their missions, not just for her own curiosity's sake - it lead to some interesting cross referencing. She had Jack involved in improving the user interface of certain equipment (_Make it easier, damnit!)_, and Daniel in adapting the shock effect of certain tazer guns (_I don't want to _hurt_ anything...)_. Whether it was about analyzing data, improving transmission ranges or developing technical equipment work around the base was definately benifiting from her competence, not to mention her ability to simply scan things with her hands. Daniel quickly realised it was quicker to have her poke things and tell him if there was anything unusal about them, than having them x-rayed and risking radiation damage. Sam engaged her in the same way for her doohickeys, saving massive amounts of time that would otherwise had gone to error searching. Phrases such as "Let's get that back to the lab" were soon replaced with "Let's get that back to Noli". She was steadily and naturally becoming somewhat of their main anchor at the base.

Nobody was really sure when Noli had started with her terms of endearment. They had krept into morning greetings and casual conversation and settled naturally in the atmosphere between them all. And however casually she used them - "Hand me the amplifier, would you cookie" in the lab or an absent "Morning, corazon" into her screen as someone came into her office – they caused a little bit of warmth to spread in in the recipient every time. As casual as the words came out, Sam was the first to notice that they weren't just part of a jargon - Noli was actually very select about who she bestowed them upon and not many of the other engineers or scientists she worked with were offered this sign of affection. Not that she wasn't very friendly to other people, but SG-1 just seemed to have a special ranking with her. Sam also noticed she didn't make comments referring directly to her special ability to anyone around the labs except her, even though she didn't try to hide it anymore. The result was that the members of the flagship team felt chosen and appreciated in a new, homey way. Even Jack, who wasn't one for any kind of mush, didn't object much after he noticed that answering Noli with a sarcastic pet name of his own didn't make her stop.

The first few times such an expression had slipped out Noli's own thought was _Crap. Don't overdo it, stupid. _But as the recievers didn't seem to take any offence, she decided to ignore the possible inappropriateness and just let the words fly out as they would. After all, a little lovin' never hurt anyone. And this group was so full of love anyway, though Noli wasn't sure they were aware of it themselves.

--

Noli was in her office, struggling with the lid on a jar of pickles. She gave it all she had for a couple of seconds, then had to let go and straighten out her hands and wiggle her fingers. It wouldn't budge. She went at it again. Nothing. She was just about to get frustrated for real when a soft voice somewhere behind her said: "Need a hand?"

Noli handed the jar to Daniel and watched him pop it open without the slightest hint of an effort. She had seen him handling fragile artifacts and carefully trace the withering carvings on pieces of rock and knew how gentle his hands were, but she had never them seen demonstrate strength. The contrast, she thought, was endearing.

"Where would I be without your manpower, shekarim?" she said as Daniel returned the jar. He took a seat, looking doubtfully at Noli fishing out a little cornichon, catching it between puckered lips and sucking the juice off it before biting it off. The motion would have looked suggestive if she hadn't been so unaware of it, staring in concentration at her computer.

"Lacking condements, I guess... Ew. Uh, did you happen to see... oh there it is." Daniel fished out a fax from between two of his books that had made their way onto Noli's desk. Noli was trying to handle the pointer on her laptop with her left hand as her right was occupied with feeding crunchy, vinegar-drenched vegetables into her mouth.

"Are you staying for a while?" she asked, not bothering to finish her mouthful before speaking.

Daniel shrugged and she continued:

"I'm going to play you... something... new." She finally found what she was looking for and music started streaming from the speakers.

"I thought you'd like it", she said and grinned happily towards him before she returned to her work.

It was never difficult to move between the two, there was no need for transition between talking to Daniel and working. He wasn't offended if she suddenly directed her attention to something else and he wasn't afraid to do the same to her. Noli appreciated this highly, it seemed to make things run so smoothly even when a big theoretical distraction like another person occupied her office. He didn't bother her at all, like some of the less flexible minded scientists in the labs would. In fact, work seemed a bit more enjoyable just from having him around. He was an obvious sweetheart, through and through, and he didn't mind her quasi-spiritual banters about Bose-Einstein condensates and ambiance.

Daniel had really just come in to find his fax but didn't mind sticking around a few minutes extra. Maybe a mental break would be good for the tasks at hand. He leaned back and listened to the music, his ears sharpening as the first words of the lyrics made their way into his conciousness.

_I'll give you countless amounts_

_of outright acceptance if you want it_

sang a woman to a rather stern beat. The words struck a cord within him. Wasn't there something familiar with their very meaning? The song continued:

_I will give you encouragment_

_to choose the path that you want if you need it_

_You can speak of anger and doubts_

_your fears and freak-outs and I'll hold it_

_You can share your so called shamefilled accounts_

_of times in your life and I won't judge it_

_And there are no strings attached to it_

As the song progressed he felt more and more moved by it. It told of the selfless, unconditional friendship he felt towards the people close to him, and that he felt was extending to include the peculiar person in front of him. The kind he wished would be the base for all actions.

_You owe me nothing for giving the love that I give _

_you owe me nothing for caring the way that I have_

_I give you thanks for receiving, its my privilege_

_And you owe me nothing in return_

As the chorus unrolled his heart actually started beating a little harder. This song was about what went on inside his own mind, inside the part still untouched by the exhausting hardships passed that threatened to leave him bitter. He looked up at Noli, still maneuvering her computer with her left hand, her right ready with a half-eaten pickle. She looked deep in concentration but he noticed her lips slightly moving, absently miming along to the last line.

_You owe me nothing in return._

She knew this song. She obviously liked it. If this was how she felt, if the song said anything about who she was then Daniel warmed even more to her. And she knew he would like it too – he wondered if he was easy to read or if she had come to know him better than he had understood. Either way, he felt something shift inside at the silent understanding of her that unfolded through this simple gesture.

When the song was over Noli glanced over at Daniel and gave him a little smile. He smiled back briefly and closed his eyes in an expression of appreciation. He then got up, waving his fax.

"Gotta go implement some test results."

Noli wiggled the few fingers that weren't holding a gherkin.

"Shine on, you crazy diamond", she said a bit absently, absorbed by animated graphs on her screen. Daniel let out a silent chuckle and left.

Going back to his office he thought about the song Noli had played him. Maybe she could make a copy of the album for him. But right now there were more pressing matters at hand, and he was soon absorbed by cross referencing writings from different planets.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

"Have you seen Daniel?" asked Sam when she ran into Jack in the corridor.

"No. Have you tried the nutty professor's office?" Jack had his ususal lazy tone of slight sarcasm.

Sam smirked. They all spent time around Noli but Daniel seemed to have made himself especially comfortable in her room. Her desk was starting to litter up with archaeological reference books and pieces on astro physics alike.

"I did actually. No one was there."

Jack took on a doubtful expression.

"See, I don't know why he keeps hanging around there so much. I thought he liked it in dusty caves, like his room."

"The lighting's better", said a voice coming from behind.

"Plus there's music, and entertainment", added another humorously. Jack turned around and met the innocent looks of Noli and Daniel returning from the comissary. He gave Noli's chest an appreciative glance - not, as Sam suspected, to the protruding roundness underneath her shirt, but to the bold letters spelling out "98% CHIMP" on top of it.

"Entertainment, huh..." Jacks jaw moved to the side in a precaurious expression.

"Yeah, just look at me", said Noli and gestured to her face. "Anyway Sam, I was thinking we should have another look at the naquadah battery. I've had a 'vision'." She her opened her eyes wide and spread her fingers on the last word.

"By the way", said Jack, sounding insulted, "Speaking about electrical stuff, there is no way that tamalin creature could take a grown human. I mean I took a shock from one and it wasn't that bad."

"But like I said, it would if it was a little bigger and you weren't grounded", argued Noli. Apparantly, this was something they had been discussing earlier. Sam rolled her eyes when it seemed like the discussion was about to continue.

"Actually, Sir, the fully grown tamalin male can be twice as big as a young female, so it could go either way. You both win."

Noli looked at Jack.

"That means we both come in second."

Jack immediatly got the drift and they chanted "We're number two! We're number two!" in an obscure reference to a Simpsons episode, generating apprehensive glances from the others. Daniel decided to ignore them and turned to Sam.

"So, anyway, you were looking for me?"

Sam was greatful to regain some professional focus.

"Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about the device from PX3-110. I think I might have something."

They had been working on the mysterious finding off and on since its discovery, but it seemed something more urgent was always getting in the way. The failure to make out its function or meaning placed it low on the priority scale, but Sam's curiosity couldn't let it go to be forgotten in a storage room and now it seemed she had finally made a discovery.

"Alright, well, let's go. Noli, you wanna come with?"

"Nah, I need some alone time with the brownie..." Noli held up a carefully wrapped little package. "I'll be by later about the battery", she said to Sam. Sam's gaze had locked on the package.

"They have brownies in the cafeteria?" Noli confirmed with an extatic "M-hmm".

"They're good", added Daniel who had already had his. Jack rolled his eyes at the water he was sure was forming in Sam's mouth.

"I'll save you one. Now go get some work done, kids." They parted and Noli stuck her arm under Jack's, and kept all seriousity in her face as she went:

"Come on Jack, let's go sell counterfeit jeans out of the garage."

"Hah."

Jack kept a straight face but was, secretly, a little giddy to have someone to share Simpsons jokes with. He accompanied Noli to her office, slumped down in the extra seat and spun it around a couple of times while Noli ceremoniously dug into the big chunk of chocolate pastry. She always seemed to be eating something. Candy bars, nuts, fruit. She would devour an apple leaving nothing but the little twig. And yet she never skipped lunch. Jack waved towards the brownie.

"Don't you ever get full? Where does it all go?"

Noli smiled, munching on the delicious mouthful.

"My brain eats it. It probably uses up half of my energy intake."

Jack was a little surprised that Noli never seemed to take clumsy remarks like that the wrong way, like most other women would. Making a reference to someone's weight, be it in essence complimentary, he knew was a minefield. It was as if she actually understood he didn't mean any offence.

"Yeah, I get that too", he answered, pretending to have just as much supernatural brain activity craving energy all the time as she. Noli smirked.

"I'm sure you do", she said, convinced there was a lot more going on inside Jack's head than one would imagine on first impression. Much like with herself. She had often found herself restraining from acting quite as silly around work as her inclination would have her, making jokes or expressing too much excitement over something intriguing, as it always made her colleagues refuse to take her seriously. But not here. Of course she generated her share of amused glances but she didn't have to care, because they didn't mean people listened to her less.

"Little to do today?" she asked Jack in between bites. He was studying the ceiling.

"Paper work", he said with a tone of contempt. Noli made a sympathetic grunt. She contemplated something for a second, then said secretly:

"There's something among these shelves that I think you'd like, my friend."

Jack glanced apprehensively around the room.

"Yeah?"

"Go hunt for treasure."

--

"So, seriously, why _do_ you keep hanging around in Noli's office?" Sam teased. Daniel winced.

"Like I said, the lighting's better..." He then relaxed. "I don't know, it's just... comfortable in there."

"So it has nothing to do with staring across a pile of books into those mysterious emerald eyes..."

"No!"

Actually, they were more of an undefinable grayish green that changed with the light and angle, but Daniel wasn't going to give Sam the satisfaction of correcting her. There was no clearly defined answer to Sam's question, but at least he knew it wasn't about physical attraction. Somehow being around Noli was just relaxing, making it easy to concentrate. In reality, once he had adapted to the persistent background noises of music and crunchy snacks, sitting in his own quiet office felt lonely. It was always nice talking to Noli, and he liked when she made little linguistic jokes or references to songs he knew he would probably be the only one to get. Combined with the way she would call him sweetheart – in various languages, turkish being his personal favourite – and casually touch him in friendly ways it just made him feel exclusive. Appreciated. With Friend. He knew she had relationships like that with the others as well, the incomprehensible word exchange with Jack before they parted was just another example, but the fact that they were all different left no room for jealousy .

"Besides, you spend more time with her than any of us", Daniel continued to defend himself.

"True."

They entered the lab and Sam showed him what she had been talking about. Noli had been right, it had been easy to get the surrounding mineral off the device, and now it was sitting on a table with measuring equipment and tools around it.

"I haven't been getting any readings off it, so either the energy source is exhausted or missing. If we could just figure out what it's meant to do I could hook it up to an external source." Sam was frowning at the device.

"Noli never figured out what it was for either?"

"No... She said she couldn't do it with something that's 'completely unknown to her conceptual world'".

A smile flashed across Daniel's lips. Sounded like her alright.

"But take a look at this."

There was an irregular gathering of vertical stems and plates inside the open construction, some of which bore finely carved writing, letters that had taken Daniel weeks to unsuccessfully dechifre. Sam was pointing at a few dents in the plates.

"I thought it might have been damaged at first, but it didn't seem right because the insides should have been pretty well protected. These dents must be part of the construction. They're completely symmetrical, but different in size and depth, and the alloy at the bottom is different than the surrounding metal - almost like the plugin for a battery. And then I thought about the writing that you haven't been able to translate - you said it felt like there were parts missing?"

Daniel leant down and squinted his eyes, looking at the anonymous dents and the by now frustratingly familiar gibberish.

"Yeah, the sentences seem to be made up of random words... This one starts "Great power" and then goes on "Twin of death"... if these words are actually part of the same sentence at all. It's a bit hard to tell when they're spread out like this."

"That's the thing. What if there actually are parts missing? Something that fits in here like a piece of a puzzle. Maybe you have to put it together with another device to make it work."

"Yeah..." Daniel stared thoughtfully at the device. "But this was the only one they found."

--

"That is one big stash of Mad Magazines", called Jack from the back shelves in Noli's office and made himself comfortable. He had only dug through a couple of issues when the activation alert went off. He winced internally, nodded to Noli and dashed for the gate room.

The research team assigned to explore the surface of PX3-113 had returned a bit ahead of schedule and their excited leader was now talking to Daniel.

"Jack!" called Daniel, "Apparently they were looking in all the wrong places the last time. Tell him, Conrad!"

The man in charge of the mission was one of the people who thrived better doing the kind of dusty archaeological work Daniel was in charge of than dealing with the military aspects of his job. Faced with the ever-bored Colonel O'Neill he looked nervous, but couldn't contain his excitement and studdered that they had come across a large number of fake rocks similar to the one brought back from PX3-110 two months earlier.

"Jack, do you know what this means?", said Daniel.

Jack stared blankly at him.

"It means that there was communication between these two planets."

Jack kept staring.

"We still don't know who made them or what the machines were for. Now we can figure it out."

No answer.

"Jack, we have to go back."

Jack gave it two more seconds, then said: "Why?" and enjoyed the frustration building up in Daniel.

"Because it's intriguing!" he managed to blurt out. He breathed and added, more calculating: "Besides, it might be a weapon of some sort."

"Don't sweat it, Danny, I'm just yanking your chain. When will you be ready to go?"

Daniel ground his teeth for a second, then let it go and started calibrating. "Well, the question is if we should go back to PX3-110 ourselves and search for more of these... rocks, and let Conrad and his team extract the ones on PX3-113...."

"You said there was a lot of them?" Jack interrupted him. Conrad, who had been following their discussion with a look of uncertainty, nodded. Daniel continued:

"I've had little luck translating the writing on the device we've got, it's really irregular. In fact it looks like some sort of code that probably can't be broken without the addition of another... It coincides with the idea Sam has, that they fit together like pieces of a puzzle. "

"So there's a ton of rocks, that look like they might have some doohickey inside of them, but we don't know which ones do and which ones don't, and if they do have something inside we don't know what's going to happen if we crack 'em open."

"We'd have to x-ray them first..." said Conrad.

"Yeah, but we can't haul all that rock through the gate, we'd have to set up an x-ray machine at the site..." As he spoke the words Daniel was already searching for a simpler way to get it done.

"Or..." Jack encouraged him.

"Or, we could just... bring the lightweight x-ray that walks and talks?"

"I'm sure she'd love that." Jack patted Daniel on the shoulder and headed for the door. Daniel followed, leaving Conrad to wonder what new and improved x-ray machine they were talking about that no one had told him about.

Daniel headed for his favourite office. From the music streaming out of the open door he drew that Noli was in, but not terribly occupied. Having been exposed to her habits for quite some time now, he had started to recognise the pattern in which the music Noli played related to her mood - it was subtle and she probably didn't give it any thought herself, but it was there - and sometimes Daniel would try to guess what she was feeling at the moment based on what they were listening to. This time he was right: he found her on the floor with a large sheet of blueprint paper covering her face, rocking her foot to the rythm of an old Madonna hit. As he stepped closer she stopped the motion, raised a finger in the air as if asking him to wait, then pointed it at him and said: "Daniel!"

He crouched down beside her with a smile.

"How did you know it was me?" he asked.

Noli pulled the paper from her face, revealing a grin.

"Your shoes."

"My shoes."

"You've had a pebble stuck under the right one for weeks."

"You felt my shoes through the floor. That's... disturbing."

Noli raised herself on her elbows.

"I know!" she agreed, highly pleased. "I've gotten much faster than I used to be, especially after I learned the floor, I can almost just skip through it. It's like working in this place has allowed me to develop my potential." She layed back down and closed her eyes. "It's fabulous."

On a whim Daniel layed down beside her. It felt a bit odd, but wasn't completely uncomfortable stretching out on the thick rug. He rested his head on his arms and relaxed. Noli rolled over on her side and studied him.

"How you doing then, sugar?"

Daniel drew a deep breath and slowly let it out, enjoying the few seconds pause it granted him in his busy day.

"Oh, I'm doing swell. My soil analyses got lost somewhere on the way from one room to another, three people called in sick this morning. And the coffee machine is broken."

"Aw. And on the bright side?"

"Yeah, actually, I came to talk to you about something. You know the machine from PX3-110?"

"Yeah, did you sort out the writings yet?"

"No, they've been a bit complicated and I think I just found out why: They've found what is believed to be the same kind of camouflaged devices on another planet, only there's several dozens of them, sitting in an underground cave system. And we can't just start cracking them open since we have no idea if what's inside is harmless or not. So, instead of bringing them all here, since they're so many, or bringing an x-ray machine to the planet to go through them all, which would also be a hassle, we were thinking... if you don't mind..."

Noli's eyes were gleaming.

"You mean I can go off-world? I can go through the gate?"

Daniel looked at her and tried to surpress an amused smile.

"There comes more after that but yeah, you get to go through the gate." He added: "We need you."

Noli resisted an urge to pounce on Daniel and settled for clapping her hands and throwing her arms victoriously in the air. She had all but given up hope on ever getting to travel through a wormhole herself, and suddenly the opportunity presented itself. It would add a wonderful aspect to her knowledge of wormhole mechanics - the most detailed descriptions in the world were still not as good as experiencing it first hand. And, of course, it would be awesome to actually be part of the flag team - even if it was just for a day or two. She knew that was the highest dream of a number of her colleagues, and even though she worked closer to the team than most of them she too had secretly wished to go out and do some adventurous field work with SGC's finest.

* * *

A/N: Wohoo! I both uploaded a chapter AND wrote several sentences today. And what wondrous, and perhaps slightly romantic, adventures await? Who knows. The references belong to Rodd and Todd, and the episode where counterfeit jeans are sold out of the garage, respectively.


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: It's been brought to my attention that I've been making a consistent error in puntcuation, I've looked at it and it is, again, because of a cultural difference. If you think it's annoying, let me know and I'll change it, but for now I'm leaving it as it is. If you don't notice it, never mind. Thanks, lil.

Another thing regarding style is whether to write eg 'Daniel said' or 'said Daniel'. I'm not sure I like the latter but I've been running with it anyway. What do you guys think?

I divided this chapter in two, because it was so damn long.

* * *

Chapter 15

When the evening had fallen Noli, who had the unusual habit of going home when her work day ended, came by Daniel's room to say goodnight. She let the pile that was her coat, bag and other things land on his desk while they exchanged a few words, and it was a while after she had left that Daniel noticed her handbag had been left behind. He picked it up with a troubled expression, wondering for a moment if he should look inside to see if there was anything she would immediately need in there. It felt a bit like a breach of integrity but he decided the end made up for the means and unclasped the lock. He peeked inside and shook the bag to see if any important keys would surface from the contents. There was make-up, pens, band-aids and other typical bottom-of-the-bag things hopping around in there, but he soon spotted her palmpilot and wallet amongst the debris. _She probably needs those_, he thought and decided he might as well call it a day himself and drop the bag off on his way home.

Daniel had been to Noli's place a couple of times before, dropping her off when she had had engine trouble and picking her up together with the others to go out for a drink, but he had never been inside. Standing outside her door he wondered for a second if it was weird to come by unannounced, if maybe he should have called first. She might not be home at all. He rang the door bell and listened. At first there was nothing, but then the patter of feet led up to him and the door opened.

Noli's face lit up with equal parts joy and surprise when she recognized the sheepish looking Daniel outside her door.

"Heya!"

Daniel stared at her for a second. Noli was holding her hands up in front of her like a surgeon, and they were covered in flour and dough. He wondered how she had opened the door if she was worried about touching things, but then realised her _foot_ was still on the door handle. She was standing a bit further from the door opening than one normally would, but otherwise looked comfortable in the strange position, as if she wasn't really thinking about it. Daniel blinked and remembered his business.

"Hi. I, eh..." he said and held up the handbag. Noli's eyes opened wide.

"Oh thank god, I thought I lost it. Thank you, that's so sweet" she said with breathless relief. She let go of the door handle, still maintaining perfect balance and motioned with her head. "Come on in! You want a cookie?"

Daniel couldn't think of anything better to say, so he said "Sure", and stepped inside.

Noli's apartment was open and spacious, strangely divided between three levels. Beyond a dining area was the kitchen, to the far left of the big first room. To the right and on a slightly lower level accessed by a couple of steps were bookshelves, a couch and armchairs and a large window, making up a library-like living room. Between the two, straight ahead from the front door, two steps led up to the higher placed back area where a small corridor led to bedroom and bathroom. Daniel would have imagined it full of knick-knacks to match Noli's hyperdivert interests and energy, but it was actually quite clean, with light woods and understated, elegantly shaped furniture.

"Just put it down anywhere", called Noli, making her way back to the kitchen.

"Ok", answered Daniel and left the bag on the floor next to her shoe rack. With the feeling of having just been thrown into the opening scenes of Breakfast at Tiffany's, he hung his jacket up and walked a few steps into the room, still curiously looking around. He was about to comment on something and turned his eyes back to Noli, but stopped when they landed on her. There was something unusual about her, but he couldn't put his finger on what. She was standing at the detached kitchen counter, shaping pieces of dough into cookies and placing them on an oven tray. She had a look of serene concentration on her face. Nothing unusual about that. Her hair looked like it had been through a wind tunnel and then tied into a pony tail. Nothing unusual about that either. She reached up and rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand, leaving a smudge of sticky flour on her face - somehow she had managed to get bake related matter all over her forearms. Daniel's gaze swept across her arms, torso and face and he realised, that was it - he had never seen her wearing less than a t-shirt and full lenght jeans, and, of course, shoes. Right now a spaghetti strap tank top clung to her upper body leaving her arms, upper chest and shoulders bare, and the pants she was wearing ended shortly below the knee revealing her smooth calves and naked feet. Normally the shirts and lab coats Noli wore at work did a good job hiding her figure, and her t-shirts with their silly messages stole the attention from her body if she took the shirt off. In this attire, hugging her curves closely and leaving so much skin bare, she looked different. Unprotected. Daniel watched her lift her hand to her face again, unknowingly rubbing off some flour on her nose. In that moment, exposed to the surroundings and caught up in her own world, she seemed vulnerable in a way Daniel wasn't used to seeing her.

Noli looked up and Daniel quickly diverted his eyes and looked around, suddenly aware he'd been staring at her.

"I guess you're supposed to have dinner before dessert... You hungry?" she asked, leaning on the counter. Daniel walked up to her, hands in his pockets, trying to look like he was still admiring her interior decorating.

"Sure, I could eat."

"Artichokes", she said with a look of content surprise over recollecting the vegetables lying in her fridge. "You like artichokes? They're good company food." She turned around with the cookies and slid the tray into the oven.

"Company food?"

"Takes ages to eat and there's not really any food on them, so it's only worth it if you have company" she explained. A smile curled Daniel's lips.

"Leaving space for extra dessert, I suppose", he teased, having regained composure.

"That's right", said Noli sternly, pointing to emphasize the seriousity of the statement. She started washing her hands in the sink. "Get them out of the fridge, would you? And hand me those scissors." Daniel obeyed, fishing out a couple of large artichokes from the fridge and laying them next to Noli, and handed her the scissors hanging beneath the cupboards.

"Now what?" he asked, eager to be of use. Noli started rinsing the large vegetables and cutting the thin ends off the leaves.

"Now you sit and talk to me", she said. Daniel took possession of one of the bar stools on the other side of the counter and did so.

It was nice, sitting in the kitchen watching Noli cook, talking about whatever popped up in his head. After a while the scent of freshly baked cookies started to seep out from the oven, making the atmosphere almost ridiculously homey. Daniel started to feel like he could sit there till the cows came home, just basking in the comfortable warmth of Noli's home.

"Can you take them out?"

Noli was busy rummaging the fridge for something to drink. There had been no alarm and she had hardly given the cookies a second look since putting them in the oven.

"How do you know they're done?" asked Daniel, getting up to do her bidding.

"Experience. Developed into a sixth sense. Automated scent-induced timing and all that. I make a lot of cookies..." Noli's ramble faded into thoughtfulness. She emerged from the fridge with a bottle of mineral water. _It doesn't show_, thought Daniel. Noli's body was wasn't skinny but slender, with softly swelling curves and lean muscles flexing underneath the smooth skin now showing. She didn't look like the type to eat between meals, but Daniel could hardly imagine her at work without her hand in a can of nuts.

"Do you think a simpler life form would be more or less prone to understand the concept of 'mu'?" she asked, reaching for glasses in the cupboard. Daniel smiled.

"From cookies to zen. Ok... How'd you end up there?"

Noli turned her head, a curve teasing on the corner of her mouth.

"How'd you end up with a tray of cookies? You were just here to drop my bag off."

Daniel was still holding the tray, not sure where to put it. He looked down on it.

"Things just sort of happened, I guess."

"Association. Everything connects, rings on the water. Leading, forward, blah blah." Noli poured water from the bottle into two glasses, set the bottle down and discretely shook her hand in an unconcious gesture, as if of habit. Daniel noticed.

"PET?"

Noli made a disapproving grunt.

"It doesn't agree with me", she said. "Sort of... itches."

Daniel felt a twinge of sympathy. As fantastic as that gift of hers was, and how happy he was to take advantage of it himself, he knew it definately had to have its drawbacks. Still, it sometimes struck him how incredible it was, almost wishing he had it too just so he could feel what it was like. Part of him still half expected it to suddenly be revealed as a big hoax, being as unbelievable as it was. An unreal glitch in a perfectly real girl.  
"I thought you had to focus to feel things."

"I wanted to check if it had gone flat..." Noli looked a little apologetic.

"You're weird", Daniel said as she passed him his glass. She raised an eyebrow. "I mean... not weird as such", he studdered. "Just... special. I mean, not..." Nothing was coming out right and he wondered how he was going fix this one. Noli just passed him a forgiving grin and said in a lazy drawl:

"My mama always said I was special..." She added: "Well, not in as many words..." She headed for the couch in the living room. "Before I learned to shut up, my parents sent me to so many shrinks they could have started their own country." She crawled up in one end of the couch, Daniel following her sank down in the other. "Welcome to Wedontbelieveinya. Please check your self esteem at the gate", Noli said with the tone of an airport announcement. She leaned her temple against the back of the couch, looking thoughtfully somewhere beyond Daniel. "It's a strange thing, experiencing your parents' shortcomings the first time."

Daniel shifted in his seat so that he could face Noli more comfortably.

"It must have felt terrible, that they didn't believe you."

Noli had zoned into a state of mind that Daniel recognized as contemplative rather than sad.

"It was more that they worked so hard not to listen when I talked about it", she said. "Waved it off. Sometimes I got the feeling that they somehow knew exactly what was going on but denied it all they could, just to avoid admitting there was something strange about me. To protect me from being a freak."

"So you just stopped talking about it?"

"Yup."

Noli's turned her focus back to Daniel, a mild smile spreading across her face. A moment went by while silent communication passed between them. _Not anymore though,_ said the sparkle in Noli's eyes. Daniel's expression lightened.

"You know I'm happy to listen whenever you need to talk... about it, or... anything."

Noli almost laughed. "I know, sweetie. I noticed." She picked at the cushion for invisible lint. "I really don't know why you stand hanging around for more than five minutes at a time." Noli knew she was prone to wandering off topic and making incomprehensible jokes, but for some reason this guy never seemed to mind.

Daniel's face broke into a shy smile. He was just about to come up with something to say in protest when the timer for the artichokes went off. Noli shot him an excusing smile and went to take them off the stove.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

They ate huddled up in the couch, occationally interrupted by stray thoughts. Noli was right, it wasn't the kind of food you had because you were hungry; it took ages, picking off leaf by leaf and dipping it in butter before gnawing off the meaty bottom part, and once they were done there was plenty of room left for cookies.

"I feel like a high school sweetheart from the fifties", said Noli as she carried them in on a big plate. "I made you some cookies, Danny", she said in a breathless voice, making big eyes at him.

Daniel chuckled.

"Gee, I guess I'll have to pin you for that."

For a second he held his breath, but the mock shock Noli was expressing at the doublesided expression told him there was no point feeling embarrassed.

Nibbling on a home made cookie, he was again struck by the feeling of homeyness - and normality. As on the first evening they had spent together at the bar, and other occasions after that, Noli seemed to have the ability to put the troubles they faced at the SGC aside when she wasn't there - in essence, regard it as work. On his account, thoughts of problems in dire need of solving rarely left his mind.

"How do you do it?" he asked. Noli looked at him, waiting for the rest of the question. "Keep your free time so... free. How do you not worry about work when you're off?"

"Who says I don't?", she answered, giving him a meaning look. "I love what we do", she continued, "we're all part of something huge - you guys especially, I mean you're literally saving the world first hand, time and again, and I'm in some way helping... I hope... And it makes me extatic, and it makes me scared shitless. Believe me, it's on my mind." She paused for a moment, looking at her hands. "I'm good at compartmentalizing, you probably noticed." Daniel smiled and nodded - he'd seen her talking to Sam about intricate problems, and suddenly changing the subject to deliver an analysis of the complicated electronics she'd been holding, revealing she'd been going through it's molecular structure the whole time. That kind of multitasking had almost been uncanny in the beginning, but most people she worked with had all gotten used to it and Daniel loved it when she would mess with the people who hadn't.

Noli's expression was filled with tenderness when she added: "What I don't understand is how you all keep sane." In her heart she was referring mainly to Daniel, whose commitment to his work would sometimes border on the unhealthy as he couldn't help getting emotionally involved. He so badly wanted to help...

Daniel looked a little hesitant before he spoke.

"You know I... died, right?"

Noli nodded slightly. "I never asked you about it, because it seems like such an impossible thing to describe."

Most people that had asked about his death and ascension, had given him the dreaded question: "What was it like?" and were always disappointed when there was nothing he could tell them. He had been half expecting Noli to pose the question as well, but she never had. Part of him was grateful, but another part had secretly wished for her to, just so that he could see if he would be able to relate any of it to her. Now that he'd brought up the subject himself and had the opportunity, he wasn't sure how to proceed.

"I was gone for a year", he tried, "and when I came back... when they found me... I didn't want to go back with them. I was scared. I had no idea what kind of person I'd been or what we'd been doing... But Sam convinced me, told me I was... well, good basically. Then as time went by I started remembering everything. I've only got a couple of blanks left, I think. And, uh... I realised that what we do is too important, to just leave, I can do more here than I could as an ascended being. So I'm glad I came back."

He had been talking to the couch, and when he looked up Noli was beaming at him.

"Honey!", she said happily. "You're a bodhisattva!"

Daniel stared at Noli for a moment. He wasn't sure what he had expected, but that wasn't it. It was so... right. No one before had compared him to a "bodhisattva" - someone reaching enlightenment and having the ability to ascend to a higher plane of existance, but chosing to stay on Earth to help others. Now that Noli had, he didn't know why he hadn't thought of it himself. To suddently have a simple name that expressed exactly what he'd been through - except that he hadn't exactly chosen to descend back to Earth himself - felt like finding a place where he belonged after a long search. One still point in a world of turmoil. He let out a quick, surprised laugh while Noli leaned over and gave him a heartfelt hug. He then fell back into his seat, washed over by the liberating wave of discovery usually reserved for solving puzzles or translations. He couldn't for the life of him understand why he'd never thought of the comparison himself.

Noli didn't quite pull back, but reached out and wiped a bit of flour from his cheek looking confused. She made the connection and felt her own face, finding the smudges of flour still on her skin.

"Hey! Bod! You let me sit here all evening like this?"

Daniel, staring into space, swayed his head in her general direction and saw what she was referring to.

"Oh... I forgot." He looked sheepishly at her for two seconds, then the corners of his mouth pulled apart all on their own. Noli barked a little laugh and threw her hand over her mouth, and the sparkle in her eyes that told Daniel she would forgive him for anything, always.

An hour later they had been talking through the circumstances around Daniel's ascension, as well as some interesting aspects of eastern philosophy and cookies. They were both tired and Daniel had made it as far as the door, and was putting his coat on. He was still in the middle of a monologue, encouraged by Noli, even though his ramble was even less focused than usual. When they were interrupted by another one of Daniel's big, contagious yawns Noli gave him a sleepy smile.

"Say goodnight and go", she said in a melodic way that sounded vaguely familiar. Daniel gave her a little apologetic smile.

"I'll see you tomorrow. 'Night."

He finally got out the door. As he proceeded on his way home, other words started attaching themselves to the ones Noli had spoken.

_It's bad enough we get along so well_

_Say goodnight and go _

There was more before those lines, something like

_Why'd you have to be something_

_Something ignore you_

_Must you make me something something_

Right. He knew he recognized them from somewhere. It was a song, of course.

_Why'd you have to be so cute_

_It's impossible to ignore you_

_Must you make me laugh so much_

_It's bad enough we get along so well_

_Say goodnight and go_

He hummed on the song for a while. It was funny how Noli often did that, found little quotes that suited the situation at hand.

_Why'd you have to be so cute_

This was somewhat of a lovesong though.

_It's bad enough we get along so well_

If one was ever to find oneself attracted to anyone one shouldn't fraternize with, these lyrics would describe the problem pretty well.

_Say goodnight and go_

Daniel's flare for deciphering puzzles kicked in and made him nervous. Could Noli be trying to tell him something? He went through as many of the lines he could remember. They were about infatuation with a friend, wanting something more. Could it be she had some sort of a thing for him?

He thought back on the evening. She hadn't been acting strangely, at least not strangely for Noli. She'd been wearing revealing clothes compared to what she usually put on, but in the privacy of her home that was perfectly normal. And she didn't know he was coming anyway. Unless she had left the bag on purpose and hoped for him to come by with it... But then she had seemed genuinly unprepared for company, unglamorously covered in dough and looking her usual mess. She'd given him that hug, but it wasn't the first one and it hadn't felt different or lingered. Plus, she hugged other people too. So... Nah. Silly Daniel. It was just a song.

* * *

A/N: Oh no, another song! This one is Imogen Heap's Goodnight And Go, from the album Speak for yourself, in case you were wondering.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

The next morning Jack found the girls in the comissary involved in discussion.

"It had like a pepita pattern", said Sam, describing something of interest.

"Meh. I don't really like pepita, I'm more of a paisley person", said Noli looking sceptical.

Jack recognized the word paisley and concluded they were actually talking about something girly.

"I used to really like it, I liked that it's strict, you know...

"Sure."

"But now, the squares just look too much like replicator blocks."

And they were back.

"Morning, ladies", Jack cut in.

"Sir."

"Pumpkin."

Sam was amused and bewildered that Jack kept letting Noli get away with her inappropriate pet names - he'd never take that level of insolence from anyone else - but he ignored it and continued: "So. Not that I think you'll be needing it but how's it going with your weapons training?"

Noli squinted an eye in disapproval of the whole thing. She had no choice though, going off world meant she had to have at least basic knowledge in how to handle firearms and her introduction to the art had begun the day before.

"Man, guns are like organised religion. But I'm doing alright, I guess."

"Organised religion?" asked Sam.

"You know... causes death and destruction..."

"Danny! T!" Jack quickly diverted the attention to the two men approaching with their breakfast trays.

"Hey, it's the Bod!" said Noli happily when she saw Daniel. Daniel gave her a quick smile as he and Teal'c sat down.

"Elle McPherson?" Jack mumbled to himself and looked around.

"I believe Elle McPherson is referred to as "The Body", and not, as Noli Brennan said, "The Bod".

Everyone stared at Teal'c for a moment.

"So, anyway." Noli turned back to Sam. "I went to get a wax this weekend."

"Yeah."

Jack and Daniel sent fluttering glances around the table. Teal'c, however, was following the conversation with stoic interest.

"And it's not a lot of work, I mean it's like a little patch, you know?"  
"M-hm."

"It took - an - hour. I was, like, in pain the whole time. And now, you should see it. Just don't go to that place. I'm gonna have to do it all over myself."

Jack was trying very hard not to choke on his cereal.

"Well, I could help you if you want."

A loud cough came from Daniel's direction.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, I mean it's easier if you're two..."

"Oh yeah, when you need to get into the thing..."

Just when Jack thought the painfully misplaced girl talk had gotten graphic enough to kill him where he sat, Teal'c joined the conversation.

"Did you not instruct them to use the new brand of wax you were referring to earlier?"

Noli's answer was inaudible to Jack and Daniel, who were busy staring at the bass-voiced man. Eventually Jack spoke, as indifferently as he could muster:

"Teal'c?"

"O'Neill."

"What the hell?"

Teal'c looked around the table.

"Are we not discussing Noli Brennan's motorcycle?"

Jack slowly shifted his eyes towards Noli. She was staring at him with a bewildered look. With a small arching of her eyebrows she confirmed Teal'cs question.

"Oh", said Jack.

Noli surpressed a smirk and turned to Daniel, who was hiding his face in his hands.

"Daniel?"

Daniel made an affirming noise.

"You ok?"

He nodded.

"Can't stop laughing?"

He shook his head.

After a few seconds he opened his fingers and peeked through them at Noli. The lovely baby blue of his eyes, glittering with withheld laugher, hit her like a punch in the face and she found herself suddenly unable to track time - seconds seemed to stretch into hours while she lost herself in the depth of his gaze. The world around her faded away until all she was aware of was the feeling of falling into a wonderful, bottomless well.

After what felt like an eternity she blinked and managed to pull herself away, a bit shaken from what had just happened. She smiled nervously, looking around to find something else to hold on to so she could regain balance. Strangely, everyone else seemed to carry on as usual. _What the deuce was that,_ she thought to herself. For a while there it had felt like looking into her friend's eyes was like looking into an alternate universe. After a few minutes of directing her attention to the discussion going on at the table she glanced back at Daniel. He looked completely normal, not showing the slightest sign that he had ever noticed what she had just experienced. Noli felt a bit relieved. So nothing weird had just happened, really, not if it was just on her behalf. There was probably an interesting explanation to it too, like dehydration. Or divine inspiration.

But as they parted to get on with the day's work and she was making her way down to the training facilities where she was being prepped for going off-world in a few days, a slight feeling of discomposure was growing in her.


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: Sorry about the huge delay, dear, sweet readers (both of you). I've been stuck down a plot hole that wasn't even anywhere near here. I'm just going to have to cover it up and hope no one falls into it. But that's way later! Now, on to the current ongoings.

* * *

Chapter 18

Daniel had as usual stationed himself in Noli's office and was watching her silently stare into her teacup. A small twitch of worry stirred in him. She had hardly spoken a word all morning, and there was nothing coming out of the speakers - an unfamiliar silence had set over the office. This wasn't like his Noli. Wasn't like Noli, he corrected himself and drew breath to speak.

Noli was watching the tea blossom in her cup slowly unfold, trying to direct her concentration at this one thing. If she could first focus her thoughts on her tea, maybe she could then focus them on her work once she looked up again. As of now, they were fluttering inside her head like a bucket of panicking butterflies. Suddenly she was interrupted by a voice.

"Um... Noli?"

"Yeah." Noli automatically looked up, immediatly wishing she hadn't. Because there they were, staring straight into hers, those eyes that she had found herself drowning in the day before. Blue as the heavens, radiating warmth and concern. She suddenly got the feeling that Daniel wasn't looking at her, but right into her, that maybe he could see what was going on inside her head. She looked down again.

"You alright?"

"Sure, why?" Noli steadied her eyes on the screen to her left, carefully avoiding any further contact with Daniel's marvellous eyes. Or face, arms and any other parts that were showing above the desk, just to be safe.

"You seem a little distracted." Daniel leaned closer over the desk and squinted his eyes. He was clearly concerned, and clearly wouldn't let her off the hook without an explanation. Noli had to give him something.

"Yeah, I've... got cramps."

She could just bite her tongue off. Of everything she could have come up with - an unsolvable problem with the technical equipment she was working on, or a simple headache for God's sake - her brain went for the most unglamorous of all. Although, the answer seemed to satisfy Daniel, who leaned back with a slightly embarrassed look on his face.

"Oh."

Noli risked a quick look and a yeah-but-what-are-you-gonna-do smile at him and stood up.

"I'm gonna go find painkillers", she stated and walked out, straining not to move too fast. She didn't want it to look like she was fleeing.

She fled to Jack's room. He was leaning over his desk, his head propped up with one hand and a piece of paper in the other, looking absent-minded.

"What?! I'm working!" he exclaimed as her knock abrubtly brought him back to reality.

"You are not..." Noli slipped into the office and closed the door behind her. Jack blinked and sat up, frowning down at his paper work.

"Hey. What's up?"

"Nothing... I just needed a break." Noli collapsed into a chair.

"You and me both sister", Jack muttered and rubbed his face. He then folded his arms on his stack of important papers and looked at Noli. "So how's it going? With.. stuff." He made a small gesture to indicate the arrray of technical mumbo-jumbo she and Sam were always working on.

"It's alright. We're making progress." She knew that's all he wanted to know and skipped the details that always made him stare blankly at her. She looked thoughtfully at the ceiling and then added:  
"I'm just finding it hard to concentrate right now, you know... Like my brain is all over the place. It's trying to make me think about irrelevant things."

Jack nodded.

"I can relate."

Just how much he could relate he wasn't going to say. Sometimes it took all of his aquired discipline to keep his mind on the matters at hand instead of trailing off into the forbidden area that was his second in command.

Noli noticed the change in Jack's eyes. There was a lot more going on inside that head, not to mention that heart, than he thought he was letting on. But she didn't like putting people on the spot - especially since it felt like Jack might have very good reasons not to reveal what seemed to pain him sometimes. That is, as an officer he should not be questioned. As a person, she would love to have a good heart-to-heart with him sometime. But the two roles, she suspected, could not be separated. _Perhaps that's exactly where the problem lies,_ she thought to herself.

They sat quiet for a while. It was comfortable, just being in the silent company of a friend. Jack enjoyed people he didn't have to make small-talk with.

"You know what you do?" he finally said. Noli looked up.

"What?"

"Just let it be. Don't fight your brain, you'll never win. Especially not you. Just.. accept what's in it and relax about it." He waved a hand in her brain's general direction.

Noli looked at Jack. He was absolutely right.

"It's like when you get a song you don't like stuck in your head", she answered with a slow rock to her chair. "Your brain thinks it's important because you react to it, and so it won't let it go. Not until you give up and listen to it."

"Right." Jack looked a bit tired. He'd just given a piece of advice he was pretty sure he couldn't follow himself. Sealing off that part of his mind was safer than opening up to it and seeing if it would go away if he indulged in it. He had a feeling it wouldn't. Whatever was spinning around in Noli's head he was sure it wasn't as bad.

"Listen", he added, "I've got all this paperwork to get through..."

Noli took the hint and got up. "Absolutely. I'll see you later, pumpkin."

_Pumpkin_, Jack thought to himself as Noli left. _I wonder what that would sound like coming from... shut up, Jack_.

Noli went back to her office feeling a great deal calmer. It was nothing. Her friend had beautiful eyes, what about it? She could admit that. She could admire them without putting any more meaning into it.

When she stepped into the room Daniel had gone. She sank into her chair and activated her sleeping screen, thinking she'd finally get something done today. Then she noticed the cup sitting in front of her wasn't the one she had left. It was a new one, steam still rising from it. She leaned down and inhaled the scent of camomile. _Daniel, you darling, _she thought. He had actually gone and made her a cup of camomile tea, to help relieve her big fat lie of an alleged discomfort. A fuzzy ball of warmth spread in her chest. _He's so considerate. _She lifted the cup to her lips with a chuckle and got to work.

* * *

A/N: No, I don't think Jack was actually doing paper work either.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

When Noli arrived the next morning everyone was hanging around Sam's lab, waiting for some fine tuning to be finished so they could embark on their expedition. Jack and Daniel were seated at the least cluttered table while Teal'c was acting as a caddie for Sam and her tools.

Noli wore a hazy expression of sleepiness and joy. Her insides were singing with anticipation and the vibrations she was picking up from everything she came across; everything felt agreeable today and she had her 'matter focus' skipping around from one thing to another like a stereo set on 'intro'.

"Hello, my darlings," she greeted in a husky voice, making her way into the room. Sam and Jack gave her each a "Morning" and Daniel leaned back in his chair, looking up at her with a light smile. She passed the table to get to the shelves in the back, rounding it behind him. Her hand landed casually on his shoulder as an addition to their greetings, like it often did. Looking down into Daniel's face, touching his warm shoulder, she felt a surge of tenderness towards this man and his subtle way of caring about her the day before. Without thinking she leant down and pressed her nose and lips against the top of his head, inhaling deeply. It only took a moment and then she continued up to the shelves and started rummaging through tools and pieces of half-finished equipment. It took her several seconds to realise she was holding her breath, trying to keep the scent of Daniel's hair in her lungs, and silently let it out.

Daniel felt something flutter inside of him. Noli's brief, friendly touches was something he'd gotten used to, though they still invoked a strange sense of warmth and calm every time. But feeling her lips suddenly brush against him, be it only on the top of his head, was different. He found himself wondering what those soft, curved lips would feel like on his bare skin. On his lips.

"Daniel!"

Apparently, someone was calling his name. He awoke from his involuntary daydreams with a start, looking around to identify who it was that wanted his attention.

"What?"

Jack was standing in the doorway, looking a little annoyed. He repeated, slower this time: "I'm going for coffee, do you want some?"

"Sure. Actually, I'll come with you." Daniel got up and walked towards the door, scratching the back of his head. He needed to distract himself from these, well, distractions.

He caught up with Jack in the hallway.

"Hey, Jack..." he said, sounding indifferent as he did when something was bothering him.

"Yeah." Jack was pushing buttons to try to make the coffee machine work.

"You know Noli?"

"Ye-es?" Jack was lightly banging on the machine.

"Does she usually, like, touch you? You know, like..."

"Daniel", said Jack and turned to him, "I know it might feel a little weird but it's just something we all have to get used to."

"We all have to get used to", Daniel repeated to himself. The disturbing thoughts slipped from him like air from a balloon. Noli was affectionate towards everyone, he knew that, and there was no reason for his thoughts to be running off with him like that. _Don't even go there, there's no point, _he told them_._

"That and the names", continued Jack. "Hey, by the way", he said and handed Daniel half a cup of coffee, "Do you know what the hell "abwa naasifah" means?"

Daniel looked up at Jack.

"She calls you an improvised explosive devise?"

Jack thought about it for a moment.

"That's the best one yet".

The three days that had passed since Noli had officially been included in the mission statement she had spent on reluctant weapons training, general preparations on what it meant to go off-world - and trying to perfect the new naquadah battery she and Sam had been working on. They were going to hook it up to a MALP and bring it with them to let it roam around for a while - if the battery proved to be working as planned they would have a very small, nearly inextinguishable power source for smaller crafts and equipment.

After a few minor adjustments and last checks Sam and Noli took the battery down to the storeroom where the MALP was waiting and rigged the machine to run on their little creation, while the men went ahead to gear up. Sam worked quickly and methodically while Noli was mostly spinning around, tapping her fingers on the MALP and listing things for Sam to check off.

At last Sam finished and shut the hatch. She turned to Noli, who was dancing discretely.

"Excited much?" she asked with the hint of a smile. Noli had never been afraid to let her giddyness over anything new show around Sam before, but this time it was unusually obvious even to her.

"You know it, cookie."

"You do know it's going to feel like you've been through six weeks worth of gravity training at NASA?"

"Like the roller coaster from hell, huh?" Noli answered as they proceeded to the changing room to gear up. "Well, I love a good ride."

Sam just smiled. She was sure anyone else would feel just as sick as she had done the first times of going through the gate, but she wouldn't be surprised if Noli happened to be the exception.

The men were waiting in the gate room when they arrived, Sam maneuvering the MALP and Noli following closely behind. Noli must have been sporting a sillier grin than usual, because she was met with indulging little smiles from all of them.

"I see they trusted you with a nine millimeter", observed Jack. "Should I be worried?"

"Hey. I can get past your metal detector... Don't mess with me and my Beretta" Noli hummed and contemplated taking the gun out to show him her new pistol spinning skills, but decided it was probably best to leave it in the holster. It would be a huge mistake to shoot someone on her first day. Instead she looked around at her friends. She had seen them dressed up in these airforce attires countless times before, but she always thought they gave them a different air than when they were loitering around the base in t-shirts and pants. While Jack looked like he had only temporarily left that uniform and was now back to his normal self, it made Sam switch from science wiz to someone with no problem getting down and dirty, authoritative in a more immediate way than in the lab. Teal'c just looked as if someone had tried to dress down his demanding precense and failed miserably. And Daniel, well... His kind appearance and the masculinity of the uniform and its weapons somehow emphasized each other until the person who stood before her resembled a deceptively domesticated watchdog - happily skipping around amongst the archaeological findings and trying to make friends with the natives, believing good about everyone; but with an underlying potential to unleash a strength and aggressiveness in the face of danger that made him seem secretly manly. The endearing impression he made on her when doing things like opening impossible jars without the hint of an effort easily rose to the power of ten when he donned his bandana and automatic weapon.

And oh yes. She had noticed how the holster strap clung around his thigh in an alarmingly sexy fashion. She had put it down to a general fetish for men in uniform, but as she now glanced him over she had to reassess how general that fetish really was - was it just her or did Daniel actually look hot today? His face was gleaming with anticipation even as he was studying his fingernails, and the wreckless way his clothes hung on his frame seemed boyishly charming.

She forgot that thought as they all turned their attention to the gate when the control room started dialing out. One after another the chevrons engaged as the great wheel of intergalactic fortune spun around with a scraping murmur. This procedure she had also observed dozens of times, but it always instilled a sense of awe in her to witness the activity of a technology so beyond her knowledge that it seemed like magic. She had spent many a lunch break sitting beneath the ring as if picknicking under a tree, with one hand around a cup of coffee and the other on the surface trying to get a grip of its constitution. The refreshing tingling of naquadah had become very familiar, but the construction of the gate was just too complicated to go through that way. She estimated it would take at least a day of uninterrupted, energy consuming concentration to even get close and there was no chance of that as it was always in use.

As the event horizon made the plunge into the room and its shimmering surface appeared the group prepared to embark.

"SG-1, you have a go", said general Hammond's voice over the speakers. Sam maneuvered the MALP up the ramp and followed it through the gate, closely followed by Jack and Teal'c. Before going after them Daniel leaned over and asked quietly:

"You got a soundtrack for this yet?"

Noli smiled into the blue puddle.

"It's playing in my head as we speak."

They walked the final steps towards the gate, crossed the event horizon and demolecularized.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

On the other side, Sam and Jack strolled down to the sunny pasture where the MALP was waiting. Teal'c had gone off in some odd direction he found interesting to do some light reconaissance.

Daniel stayed on the platform as the gate shut behind him and Noli, and turned to watch her reaction to the ride she had just taken for the first time. She looked up at him and grinned widely, apparently very pleased. He had expected her to be at least a little bit naseous, but if she was she wasn't showing it. If anything her whole face was shining, and he had to smile back at the unabashed joy she was displaying. It was impossible not to be affected by the warm enthusiasm she felt for some things; he waited for the sweet, off-the-wall remark he knew she was about to make at this new experience.

Within moments, however, her expression started to change. The grin stayed on but seemed to slowly freeze, and she looked at him slightly questioning - for a short moment he wondered if he had something in his teeth. But then he watched the questioning look in her eyes change into downright confusion. Her eyes stayed locked on his, but her focus was shifting from him to something far beyond as the confusion took over her whole expression. He watched the stiff grin fade as her eyes finally glazed over with something resembling despair. There was something very wrong and he struggled to make a connection - Noli looked like she just remembered she left a raging fire on when she left home this morning.

"Noli? What's wrong?"

Noli started writhing and tugging at her helmet. "Get it off", she muttered between her teeth. Daniel made a hesitant motion to help her before it flew off and she started clawing at the collar of her jacket. The concern he was feeling grew into a chill. If there were alien bees crawling inside her BDU's, he couldn't see them.

"Noli? Noli!" He reached out for her, calling her name, but she didn't seem to notice. Instead she was stumbling to get out of her clothes, fumbling blindly at zippers and velcro she couldn't get a grip on. The strange irritation she felt was growing into a fullblown panic. Daniel's words didn't seem to get through, and she slapped his hands away in the process of flailing her arms around. Finally Daniel wrapped his arms around her to hold her still and called for Jack.

Jack and Sam came running back to find Noli in held back hysterics, breathing heavily with her jaws clenched shut and struggling in spite of herself to free herself of Daniel's clinch.

"What happened?" shouted Jack.

"I don't know! She just went crazy all of a sudden." Daniel withstood a violent wriggle from his prisoner. Jack took a closer look at her face.

"Noli?" He made no contact. "Did she step on something?"

"No! We never moved."

"Could it be some sort of side effect from gate travel?"

Sam shook her head, staring troubled at Noli. She was scraping furiously at one of her shoes with the other.

"I don't think so, nothing like this has ever been reported... Is she trying to get the uniform off?"

"Noli!" Jack tried again. "Carter, dial up, let's get her back home."

Sam ran down to the DHD and started pushing symbols while Jack radioed Teal'c back and Daniel got out of the way of the activating wormhole. Daniel kept his sturdy grip around Noli and he could feel her fighting to regain control of herself, holding her breath to keep from hyperventilating and trying to let him lead her.

"Noli?" he asked cautiously with his cheek pressed to the side of her head. "You ok? What's happening?"

Noli took a couple of shallow, interrupted breaths before responding in a strained voice.

"I don't know." Her tense muscles were starting to relax again. "It hurts."

The splash of the outgoing wormhole appeared. Daniel started walking Noli the few steps back towards the gate. She was no longer putting up a fight, but instead her legs wouldn't support her: she tried walking, pushed onwards by Daniel's whole body but her knees wobbled and gave way underneath her. Finally he risked letting her free to throw another fit and picked her up and carried her through.

---

Back on the base Daniel sat Noli down on the floor of the gate room while Jack shouted for medical attention. She seemed calmer now, although she was still breathing in thrusts and she was aimlessly shifting her hands around as if in defence of something that couldn't be touched. Tiny beads of cold sweat glistened on her pale forehead and her eyes were wandering quickly without landing on anything, full of worry. When Daniel let go and crouched down in front of her she remembered her mission on the planet and started ripping her vest and jacket off again, successfully this time.

Daniel was all frowns. His mind was struggling to find the reason for Noli's predicament, but he didn't know where to begin searching for the problem and Noli was offering no explanation.

"Is there something wrong with your BDU's?" he tried.

"No", Noli muttered and proceeded with her boots, and then started undoing her pants.

"Hey, hey, you sure you wanna do that?" Sam asked, but the determination in Noli's face left no room for protests. She pulled the pants off and tossed them to the side. Being rid of her clothes, sitting on the cold floor of the gate room in her underwear and airforce issue singlet she finally calmed down somewhat, taking deep breaths and rubbing her face with her hands

"Ok... ok... ok." she panted. She went still, holding her hands up in an anticipating gesture and looked around precauriously. The room went silent as her friends waited together with her for whatever it was she was waiting for. For a second or two Daniel noticed his own breathing become a little easier. But the chill took over again when Noli slowly began shaking her head and closed her eyes tight, whispering "No".

"Noli!" Daniel grabbed her shoulder with one hand and her face with the other, forcing her to look at him. A mixture of fright and frustration was gathering in him, because she wouldn't tell him what was wrong, because he didn't know what to do, because the medical team was taking forever, and all he could think of saying was: "Compartmentalize!"

Noli blinked. She looked him straight in the eyes and he knew that she saw him now, locking on to him searching for something to hold on to. He tried to will her to concentrate. Her head was unsteady on her neck but she kept eye contact, and said weakly:

"I feel everything..."

At last the medical team came running with their stretcher, loudly scorn by Jack for the delay. Daniel backed off and let them get to work, shining flashlights in Noli's eyes, pressing stethoscopes to her chest and attaching observation equipment to her body. She endured them with badly withheld aversion, eyes closed and face wincing at every contact. Finally, when she had been placed on the stretcher and someone was attaching little electrodes with plastic adhesives to her temple, she threw out her arm with an annoyed wail and started kicking around, tearing the chords off.

"Get her in restraints before she hurts herself", someone called. Noli grabbed the man with the electrodes by the shirt and pulled him in close.

"Sedate me!" she hissed in his face.

The tired desperation in her voice made Daniel motion towards her, but Jack's hand landed heavily on his shoulder.

"There's nothing we can do, Danny", he said in a low voice. "Let them take care of her."

They all watched in silence as the paramedics wheeled Noli off to the infirmary. They were left feeling strangely responsible for what had just happened, at the same time as they had no clue what that was.

"I don't understand," said Sam. "She's been fine. Hasn't she?" Everyone turned to Daniel for confirmation.

"She, uh... she was feeling a little under the weather yesterday", he answered, uncertain about the relevance of this.

"Perhaps she was exposed to some unknown illness at the planet", suggested Teal'c.

"During the fifteen seconds we were there?" Jack was highly doubtful. "She hardly got out of the gate."

"We should all have been exposed in that case", said Sam. "Although, it's not unlikely Noli's affected differently... by things..."

Daniel was still staring at the door the medical team had disappeared through. "She said she 'felt everything'..." He turned to the others. "Do you think she meant she's feeling everything like she does when she's touching things?"

"We should come up with a name for that..." Jack mumbled.

"I don't see how that could be, she's in total control of it. Unless... I'm gonna go change", said Sam and headed off. The others exchanged looks, hoping Sam was on to something. She usually was.

---

When Sam came to the infirmary half an hour later she was met by Janet.

"How is she?" Sam saw the strained concern in Janet's face that meant she had no straight answers.

The doctor waited a beat before she spoke. "I think you should have a look at this." She lead Sam to the room where Noli had been placed while explaining what had been going on since they left her in her care.

"We've tested for everything we could think of. As soon as she got here she started hyperventilating until she passed out. Being unconcious breathing returns to normal, and she woke up, only to start hyperventilating again. She did that a couple of times until I pumped her full of sedatives. And no small amount either, it's enough to knock out a Jaffa, but she's awake. More or less." She stopped outside the door. "And we had to put her in restraints. She kept tugging the monitors off and I didn't want to give her any more sedatives until I understand what's going on." She took a breath. "I haven't seen her brain activity at its normal. I'm guessing it's a little out of the ordinary. But I'll be damned if it's supposed to look like this."

Noli was lying in the simple hospital bed, dressed in a simple hospital gown. White patches on her temples secured the electrodes reporting signals to the monitor by her side. Her wrists and ankles were secured with soft leather cuffs - she wasn't tugging on them specifically, but writhing and fidgeting in general as if fighting the urge to shake off invisible bugs. Her eyes were open wide and she occationally forced herself to blink.

"Hey..." Sam slowly approached the side of the bed. When she gently placed her hand on Nolis arm her head jerked to the side and she stared right at her. Sam was startled by the wild look in her eyes.

"Don't", she whispered. Sam quickly pulled her hand away.

"Sorry."

People got sick or injured all the time on the SGC. Most of the time it ended well. Not all of the time, but most. Noli'd be ok. She wasn't even all that sick, compared to some other cases they'd experienced. But there was something about seeing her this far from her usual self, in inexplicable despair, that unsettled Sam. And she couldn't even pat her on the arm to comfort her. She needed to submerge herself in practical work and try to solve the problem, it was the only way to feel anything but utterly useless right now. Gratefully she let Janet turn her attention to a computer screen.

"I helped myself to an MRI while she was unconcious."

Sam stared at the pictures of Noli's brain. The colored areas that indicated activity were practically covering the surface.

"Her EEG is indicating the same thing. And at that, the activity seems to be increasing."

"Increasing? From this?" Sam baffled. "How can so much of her brain be active at once?"

"It can't. That's the thing." Janet hesitated for a second. "If this goes on for much longer I'm afraid we'll be seeing massive loss of nerve tissue. The brain can't sustain this level of activity. And so far, I've no way of stopping it."

"So what's the damage?" The women turned around to see Jack and Teal'c in the doorway.

"None... yet", responded Janet.

"Sir, something must have happened when we stepped through the gate. Her brain's going haywire."

"I heard. So... no spacebugs?"

Janet shook her head.

"God..." Noli was quietly mumbling in her bed. The four people present all turned their attention to her. She was shaking her head from side to side and had closed her eyes shut again, her face clenched together in an expression of pain. "I can't do this", she whispered.

"Noli?" Janet walked up to her, pulling out her stethoscope. "That's the first sane thing she's said."

"Get away from me!" shouted Noli when she came near. She started tugging at the restraints, purposfully this time. "Let me go!"

"Noli, calm down." Janet used her slow, gentle voice so often used to sooth upset, troublesome patients. Noli would not calm down. She kept tugging and struggling, contorting her face and burst into tears.

"Get out! Get out!" she yelled.

"Noli, you have to tell us what's wrong", demanded Janet in a louder but still gentle voice. Noli pushed her head down into the pillow and clenched her jaw.

"Let's just say I know all of you in here a little too well right now!"

They looked at each other in troubled confusion.

"Daniel! Go away!" yelled Noli.

"Daniel's not in here", Sam explained.

"He's outside..." she moaned.

"Oh, god." Sam looked up at the others in horror. "She's picking up on us." A second passed while the meaning of this sank in, and then they all hurried out of the room.

In the hallway outside they met with Daniel on his way to join them.

"Did she just call me...?" he started asking as they hurried past him.

"We can't be in there. You were right, she's picking up everything now. Including living tissue", said Sam.

Daniel's eyes grew wide as he processed this. "Jesus", he mumbled and followed them away from the room. If she was being involuntarily bombarded with impressions from everything within reach that was bad enough, but if the failsafe that kept her from reading living tissue was no longer working, then... His skin almost physically hurt as he tried imagining being uncontrollably pounded by the all the tingling, humming feelings she had described to him at once. And that was just from the inanimate objects.

Halfway down the corridor, Janet made a halt.

"I'm going to try putting her under. It should buy her a little rest."

"I suggest emptying the room of anything not absolutely necessary", rumbled Teal'c.

"Good thinking, Teal'c." Janet detached herself from the group and they proceeded to a short debriefing with the general.

---

In Sam's lab she and Daniel were pacing up and down in opposite directions. Teal'c stood statue-like inside the doorway, seemingly unaffected by the situation. But the people who knew him so well could see that he displayed the same amount of concern as they did, albeit in a more stoic way. Jack slumped in a chair, feeling a little too useless for comfort. He was a man of action, and if he could he would have killed the bug, donated the blood, blown up the machine, but this was one of those mysterious theoretical problems best left to Sam or Daniel. However, they seemed to be stuck. All they had concluded was that something had happened to Noli going through the gate. It had jumpstarted her. Turned up the volume. Altered her physical... something or other. Sam thought it was because of the raw exposure to the wormhole. Daniel thought the gate had put her back together differently. Upgraded her, so to speak. Or stripped her of some built-up defence mechanism. Teal'c just stood there, saying nothing. Jack was... a little hungry.

"Does anybody want anything?" He straightened and prepared for take-off. Sam turned her head and stared at him mid-sentence.

"What? No. Thanks. Sir." She started pacing again. "The molecular structure..."

"Actually I'm kinda hungry", said Daniel carefully. Jack slapped his knees and got up and left for the vending machine or the commissary, whichever was closest. He couldn't remember.

"If it doesn't stop she'll die, Sam." Daniel looked at her with something of a plea in his eyes. She stopped pacing.

"I know." She sank into a chair. "But how do we stop it? It's basically built into her physionomy."

"Perhaps the effect will wear off in time", suggested Teal'c.

"If the neuron patterns have a uniqely different, natural state in her.. which is probable... that is what should happen after at while, when they fall back to that state. Only we don't know how much time it would take. It could be days."

"And she doesn't have days..." Daniel sank into another chair.

"You know, I can't help feeling like we did this to her."

Daniel looked at Sam. Then he looked at his hands. He knew what she meant. But he also knew that if he dwelled on it, the feeling would grow into full-blown guilt over causing the imminent death of the team's baby sister because he was too lazy to go about things the old fashioned way and x-ray the damn rocks he was so curious about himself, and there was just no time for that. He guessed Sam was thinking in the same direction as she got up and started pacing again.

"Perhaps it would be easier to find a solution if we returned to the root of the problem", mused Teal'c.

"And the root of the problem would be..." wondered Jack, returning from the vending machine. He tossed a candy bar to Daniel, who caught it distractedly.

"The rest of the world", he said with a hint of bitterness. He looked at the candy bar. 'Snickers'. Noli's favourite. It had peanuts in it. Maybe if he went over and waved it in her face she'd come to. It usually worked when he wanted her to tear her eyes from her computer and do something for him. He suddenly felt like a manipulative bastard, always using her for his own selfish purposes. _Like we already concluded, there's no time for that_, he thought and tried to shake it off. "The rest of the world", he repeated, "is her problem." He tore the wrapping open and took a bite off the bar.

"Because everything around is giving her constant impressions. Those impressions are about to burn out her brain." Sam chewed on her lip. "To remove the impressions would at least buy us some time, let her rest while we figure this out."

"Yeah, and how do you go about removing the rest of the world?" said Jack, less than enthusiastic. "If we put her in one of the empty chambers on the bottom level... No, it won't work, as long any part of her is touching the floor she's still in contact with everything else. Actually I'm not so sure we should rule out the possibility that contact isn't even necessary anymore. If she's so sensitisized she feels people, the vibes might just reach her through the atmosphere."

"Great", muttered Daniel. The caramel and chocolate melting in his mouth had no taste, but he kept chewing mechanically.

"Some sort of forcefield perhaps." Teal'c looked around at them. "Something of the likes of the personal shield Apophis possessed."

Sam thought about it for a second. "Possibly. But forcefields like that oscillate. There would still be a 'drumming' of contact. Not to mention we don't have one..."

The group fell silent. It seemed they were getting nowhere. Daniel decided to get up and go see how the main character of the drama was holding on - at least it felt like he was doing something.

He stood outside the room where Noli lay and looked in through the plexiglass window in the door. It was eerily empty in there. Janet had had everything not bolted down - and some of that as well - removed and the grey of the walls and floor seemed all the more cold and pasty when naked. The pale character on the hospital bed was lying very still, but the flinching, desperate expression of her face told him she was still conscious. The only thing keeping her company was the EEG attached to her head, a sorry grey box that melted into the background.

"I gave her as much as she could possibly take", said a voice behind him. "She won't sleep." He turned around to meet the big brown eyes of Janet, full of sympathy. He drew breath to speak, but his throat constricted and nothing came out. He didn't know what to ask anyway, he'd thought about everything and there were no answers.

"Her brain activity seems to have landed at this level, nothing is making much difference anymore. If you want to go in..."

"No", he quickly answered. He couldn't bear the thought of adding to Noli's discomfort by approaching her. Janet nodded silently and withdrew, leaving him alone.

His head was numb, and somewhere inside it the urge to go in there and stroke Noli's hair and tell her everyting was going to be alright was tangling with the urge to run.

---

In the lab, Jack muttered to himself: "If you don't like to be wet, don't dwell in the tub."


	21. Chapter 21

N/A: I swear this story is not dead. I won't let it go until it lets go of me, and that won't be until it's done. I am, however, and unfortunately, a very slow writer.

Question: Should I make the chapters shorter?

Fact: I've decided to try to find a music theme for each chapter. Let me know how it works. I'll put a Spotify/Youtube playlist up somewhere, maybe.

* * *

_Chapter theme: Devotchka - How it ends_

---

Chapter 21

Daniel was lingering outside Noli's room, not quite sure what to do with himself, when Jack and Sam came stomping down the hallway. They hurried past him and into the room before he had a chance to ask what was going on.

"Hey Daniel, give us a hand here", shouted Jack.

"It's ok, we've got it" countered Sam. They came back out wheeling Noli's bed between them.

"What are you doing?" said Daniel, a little disturbed before he realised they were finally taking action of some sort. He joined the march towards the elevators.

"I have an idea", said. Sam. "It was something the Colonel said. Well, actually, it was something _she_ said." She nodded in Noli's direction. "Where would you be completely surrounded by an absolute minimum of anything at all?" Sam had that enthusiastic tone of discovery that was annoying when you didn't know what she was talking about and she wouldn't just come out and say it.

"A vacuum", said Daniel mechanically and then flinched. "You're going to put her in a vacuum?"

"Yeah!"

Every questionable aspect of this slipped through Daniel's mind and across his face before he managed to blurt out: "How?"

"We're borrowing an alkesh from Teal'cs buddies to use the ring transporter", answered Jack.

There was a surreal pause in their rush when they stopped and waited at the elevator. After a few seconds Jack remembered to push the button. Sam begun explaining.

"We figured a space walk would relieve her of most of the impressions. At the very least it should buy us time, and if we're lucky, the problem will fix itself when her brain's not on constant overload. She'll still have the suit, but if there's not other matter around... And of course we can't secure her to anything or she'll have the whole ship to feel and not just the suit, so it'll be a free dive... But it shouldn't be a problem. As long as she doesn't move around too much when we let her go."

The elevator door opened and they pulled the bed inside. The door closed and they waited.

"Oh, right." Jack pushed the button.

Daniel looked at Noli. She seemed to have resigned under the weight of the impressions pouring over her, only the occational twitch of her features revealing she was everything but at peace. They were going to set her adrift in space. Cold, mercyless space. If anything were to go wrong...

"Get her out of these damn restraints", he muttered and started undoing the cuff around her right wrist. A bruising was beginning to appear on the skin underneath from her tugging and pulling. The blue and purple stood in such clear contrast to the blood-drained white of her skin that it almost looked as if floating above it, and very out of place. His instinct was to run his thumb gently across it, to examine it, but he kept himself from touching her. Sam and Jack quietly undid her left hand and her feet - the same bruising was forming there.

Noli suddenly took a slow, deep breath and directed her half-closed eyes to her right, although not straight at Daniel. She raised her hand and held it over his chest.

"Sch... Calm down, you'll give yourself a heart attack." She spoke quietly, just above a whisper, and softly sluring as if she was afraid of her tongue touching her teeth. Her hand fell gently back onto the bed, hesitating just before it landed. Sam leaned over her.

"Noli?"

"If it didn't hurt so much... this would be kinda cool." The misplaced humour in Noli's hoarse voice went straight into a lump in Sam's stomach.

"Hold on a little longer, we think we found a way to help you."

"There are, um...birds fighting over an apple core on the roof", whispered Noli and closed her eyes. The corner of her mouth pulled up in a dubious smile that quickly faded. Sam looked up at Jack and they exchanged a look of understanding. Time was running out. This better work, and work fast.

Daniel hadn't noticed until then, but now he felt what Noli meant: his heart really was racing. It should feel stranger, he thought, to have someone literally see straight into one's heart. He looked down on Noli's face. A tear was slowly making its way through her dark lashes and trickled down her temple and the feeling in his gut made it painfully obvious: It wasn't strange to have her so aware of his heart because she belonged there anyway. Over these past few months Noli had gone far beyond being a co-worker; she had become one of his best friends. His strange, quirky, beautiful friend who felt like home every time he stepped into his... her... whatever, the office. Whether she talked to him or not didn't matter, the silence was as comfortable as the conversation. Always kind - she would gladly laugh at him or express dissatisfaction as she saw fit, but she never made him feel bad. Rather the opposite. The warmth in her eyes, her hand on his shoulder or tousling his hair, the inside jokes - little things that all added to the friendly atmosphere between them. She would unabashedly try to annoy him, lean on him and read over his shoulder or throw balled up paper at him when she was bored, but she seemed to sense the moments before he actually became irritated and give up just in time. Or get him over on her side, make him laugh and drag him off to the comissary or out to the pub. There was no way of imagining everyday life without Noli.

Finally the elevator stopped and the doors slid open. Outside Teal'c was already waiting, towering silently with the space suit in its bag. He saw no need to ask about Noli's condition - with a glance he could see for himself it was critical.

"Is everything ready?" asked Sam, a little breathless from sheer stress.

"It is. We are in luck that Bra'tac should be in such close proximity. He is ready to bring us aboard."

"Alright, let's get going. Teal'c, you wanna...?" Jack gestured for Teal'c to pick Noli up. He knew Daniel well enough to see precisely how stressed out he was at the moment and didn't want to make him cause Noli any more pain. He told himself it was unnecessary to put the extra strain on his knees by doing it himself, although in his mind he knew he was just as reluctant to add to Noli's suffering as Daniel. Teal'c, he knew, would have no problem doing what was necessary even if Noli would hate him for a couple of minutes.

Teal'c handed over the bag to Jack and eased his hands in under Nolis knees and neck. At the contact she opened her eyes and pushed air out through her nose as if something had suddenly burned her. Teal'c lifted her up with ease and held her steadily against the wall of his chest and the group started moving towards the spot selected for their pick-up. Noli kept exhaling in sharp puffs that were soon accompanied by weak moans. It took less than a minute to get into position but in that time Teal'cs expression turned from grim to grimmer, and when he notified Bra'tac they were ready to come aboard Jack thought he heard a slight hint of human stress on his voice.

In the ring room of the ship they were met by Bra'tac. He greeted them and waited for Teal'c to set Noli down before embracing him. He then turned to the miserable woman on the floor, who had stopped moaning when Teal'c let go but started lightly cramping instead.

"I had been hoping to meet your new friend during more preferable circumstances. She does not look well."

"Indeed she does not."

"Yeah. Well, hopefully there'll be more opportunities after this is over." Jack stood with his hands on his hips and waited for Sam. She had pulled the suit out of its bag and was removing everything that wasn't absolutely necessary from it. Daniel was standing next to her, holding the large helmet and grinding his teeth.

"Ok", Sam sighed when she was done and looked at Jack. "Let's do this fast." Jack let out a breath and crouched down on Noli's other side. He exchanged a look with Sam, and then they each grabbed a bruised ankle and quickly started pulling the suit onto Noli's legs. Jack could feel her muscles contract in protest during the short moment he held on to her, but within seconds they had her bottom half dressed. They moved on to slip her arms into the arms of the suit. They were seizing up in cramps and they had to struggle to force them in, but determination prevailed. Teal'c stepped in, bent down and held her under the arms and picked her up so that Sam could close the suit in the back. Noli's legs were doing very little to help and Teal'c was left supporting her entire wriggling weight, holding her out a bit from his own body to avoid unnecessary contact.

"Daniel." Sam waved for the helmet. Daniel helped her attach it and Teal'c carefully laid Noli back on the floor.

"Alright, let's do this", said Jack. He, Sam and Teal'c moved away from the circle of the transporter. Daniel hesitated, looking to find one last moment of eyecontact before withdrawing and leaving his friend to be set afloat alone in space. In his mind he saw images of drifting, out of reach, being lost. Dying. Alone.

Bra'tac pressed a combination of buttons on the control panel and the large rings shot up around Noli, covering her in cold white light - they fell down, and she was gone, floating in the emptyness underneath the ship.

"Come on, we can monitor her vitals from the control on the bridge", said Sam. They hurried out and gathered behind her as she hunched over a station, staring intently at the screen while bringing the information up.

"There." She straightened. "That's her..." She squinted her eyes. "...uh... Her beta waves. Wow, they're really off. ...Pulse is irregular. Adrenalin, cortisol, everything is sky high."

"Any improvement?" asked Jack cautiously. Sam made a face.

"I don't know, I think it's too early to tell. We'll just have to sit tight." As if she knew what he was thinking, she turned quickly to Daniel.

"Don't worry, she's got life support for at least five hours in there."

Perhaps she was reassuring herself as well. There was no question about the safety, the ship was in position to transport Noli back within a second and she was completely protected by the suit. It was having no idea how long it would take, or whether it was even going to work or not that gnawed in Sam. In her head she was going through what Noli was still left with - plastics, metals, electronics.

Occupying her mind with practical matters had been keeping it from lingering on the notion that one of her best friends was dangerously ill, but when she glanced at Daniel she was reminded of the fact that underneath the surface she was feeling just as bad as he looked. For a second she wondered if that look of contained panic was what he harbored every time any of them was in jeopardy - if so, she was both touched and worried.

Jack and Teal'c were warriors; they knew not to take anything out in advance. Especially death. Staring at a screen full of readings and values seemed unnecessary; there was nothing they could do but wait and if anything should change Sam was sure to call it to their attention. They left the station and moved to the other side of the bridge, engaging in quiet conversation with Bra'tac.

Sam kept staring at Noli expressed as graphs and figures on the screen. Strange, just the other day they had been sitting over breakfast, talking about paint jobs on motorcycles. That's the world Noli belonged in, she was supposed to go merrily about her business at the base, join Sam at the commissary, randomly help with projects, drag her out on girls' night. Be there when they came back from missions like a lifeline to the outside world. Now it was they who had dragged her out into their world, and the result was devastating.

All this was running through Sam's head so vividly the figures she was staring at had turned into a blur. When Daniel suddenly said "There!" she had to blink a couple of times to find her focus again. He was pointing to a shifting number in the corner of the screen indicating Noli's heart rate. Sam held her breath as she watched it slowly alter from the irregularly changing, much too high level it had been on the last five minutes: it was evening out and dropping. After a minute or two, although still changing a bit too much to be considered regular, it kept between normal boundaries. Sam waited, but as it seemed to be staying down she dared say it to herself:

"It's working." She turned to the men huddled at the other side of the room and repeated it a bit louder. "Hey guys. It's working." She turned back to the monitor as an air of cautious hope spread among them.

Daniel had backed away from the screen when he knew things were going in the right direction and was slumped against the wall, resting the back of his head heavily on it with his eyes closed.

Another few minutes of monitoring told Sam Noli must be out of the darkest woods, because her breathing became slow and regular, as did finally her heartbeat. The activity of her synapses, however, was not slowing down at the same rate. But the mere fact that it was measurably slowing at all was enough for her to let go of the gnawing worry and think that everything was going to be alright after all. All they had to do was wait for Noli's body to regain it's own balance, like an excited electron falling back to its natural level around its core. There her former concern was replaced by another - she had no idea what was normal for Noli's EEG. She had a notion of what it should look like with a healthy person, but as Janet had said, with this girl it would probably be a little out of the ordinary. She sank into the chair behind her. No matter what they did they couldn't be sure it was right, when Noli was the only one who could tell them. They wouldn't know if she was alright again, until she actually was. If they brought her back too soon, and it started all over again, then what? Reset the suit and send her back out there, again and again? They couldn't hog Bra'tac's ship forever. Sam sighed and rubbed her eyes. They were tired from the concentrated staring, she was tired from searching for ideas.

"Hey." Jack's hand landed on her shoulder. "We'll just sit tight, right? Couple of hours?"

Sam let her hand fall down in her lap.

"It's just that I don't know if it'll be enough..."

Jack interrupted her. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, Carter. You've done enough for now."


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Sam waited until the last minute before Noli's oxygen levels would start getting too low for comfort before she decided it was time. Almost five hours had passed, drearily spent making smalltalk, aimlessly wandering around the ship, waiting in silence. The beta waves of Noli's EEG had reached some sort of stable state - not quite what Sam knew to be normal, but it had to be about right. Everything else seemed in order, her heart was beating regularly, a bit slow even, and her breathing was calm - all things suggesting that the stress overloading her brain was gone.

Bra'tac managed the control panel. The rings shot up from the circle of the transporter, sharp light filled their center, they fell down and the white space suit was lying on the floor again. For a moment a deafening silence filled the room and Daniel was hit by the unreal feeling that the suit would be empty, before he got his feet detached from the floor and went to help get it off. Sam was undoing the helmet; Daniel was relieved to catch a glimpse of Noli's face through the glass before they pulled it off, as if finding the suit empty would have been a real possibility. She was pale, strands of hair damp from perspiration sticking to her skin. Her eyelids fluttered in response to the bright light of the transporter room and then opened briefly before falling shut again.

"Hey", said Daniel quietly, "How are you feeling?" Before he could get an answer she was pulled up from him when Teal'c lifted her as before and Sam and Jack worked the suit off. She was limp as a rag, legs folding like spaghetti when Teal'c carefully set her down again. They stood and stared at her for a while, not quite sure what to do, waiting for a sign. Daniel crouched down by her side again but didn't dare touch her, not before they knew. She was lying turned to her side so still, barely visibly breathing. She looked cold - he realised she was still in the damn hospital gown. He wanted to reach out, wanted to touch her - he was sure that if he placed his hand on that pale, smooth skin it would feel like ice. But he didn't want to force the chaos of signals from his body on her.

Noli didn't open her eyes, but she was to some extent conscious - slowly, with effort, her hand started wandering. The back of her fingers found Daniel's shoe. He stood up and was about to pull away, but her fingers apparently deliberately stayed there, continued around the back of the shoe and climbed up his ankle. She clasped the bottom of his leg with weak fingers, and then her other hand started moving more intently in the same direction. It curved around his calf from the other direction until she had it in a more demonstrative than firm grip between her hand and the crook of her arm.

"So I guess that's a good sign", said Jack. Daniel looked around a little perplexed, but as it settled that Noli was okay with contact he undid her feeble grasp on his calf and got down on the floor, pulled her up and rested her against himself. She lay heavily against him and threatened to slide down on the floor again. Daniel held her tight and supported her back with his left arm, hesitated at first but then reached up with his right hand and stroked some hair from her face. She really was ice cold, he could even feel it through his fatigues.

"Jack, do we have anything she can wear?" He was annoyed that no one had thought about it, brought her clothes, a blanket. He cradled the back of her head with his hand. Sam, who had got down to listen to her heart, stopped and felt her forehead with the back of her hand.

"She must be down to at least 35 degrees Celsius", she said.

Jack exchanged a look with Bra'tac who disappeared to the interior of the ship.

"Actually that might be a good thing. Cold is known to preserve brain tissue during asphyxia. I didn't think to check for it, I hope she's been cold all along."

Daniel suddenly sucked in his breath. The lump of ice that was Noli's hand had found its way in under his shirt and was settling mercylessly on his stomach.

"Hey", he said through his teeth. He closed his hand around her wrist and lifted it off his skin.

"Wait, I know what she's doing", said Sam. "It worked." She looked up. "And now she wants quiet."

It had happened on occasion in the lab, when Noli was tired and her concentration wavering, that she had borrowed a patch of Sam's arm or the back of her neck to rest her hands on - to shut down reception without having to concentrate and have a moment of complete silence.

Teal'c made the sacrifice before the others had made the connection and pulled his shirt off. Without a word he relieved Daniel of Noli and adjusted her in his arms with an easy nudge, as if lifting a sack of potatoes. The tiniest flitch of his eye revealed how the cold of Noli's skin shocked his, but he held her steadily. The deep dark chocolate of his hue emphasized Noli's porcelain-like skin and the bleak gown she wore and made her look almost artificial, as if her skin was transparent and aglow. She let out a deep breath, sounding almost content, and something seemed to release in her already ragdoll-like body.

Sam checked her eyes again, felt her pulse, patted her on the cheek. There was no response.

"She's out of it", she concluded.

"Indeed." Teal'c tried to sound indifferent but there was a slight hint of strain to his voice, as his body tried to resist the chill spreading from Noli.

Bra'tac appeared again, accepted the image of the bare-chested Teal'c holding the lifeless little scientist without comment and held up a thick blanket.

"I believe it would be best to avoid any more material to come in contact with Noli Brennan at this time", said Teal'c.

"I agree", said Sam. She was about to suggest they remove her thin hospital gown and underwear as well, but changed her mind. A little bit of cotton and paper, leave it to let her keep some dignity, she was defenseless enough as it was.

"Very well." Bra'tac tucked the blanket under his arm. "Am I to understand your attempt was successful?"

Sam nodded, not entirely convinced but optimistic. "I think so. From what it seems she's finding living tissue quiet again... That should mean she's back to normal."

"What is normal in this case is not like anything I have ever encountered", mused Bra'tac.

"Yeah, us neither." Jack started nudging Daniel in the direction of the transporter circle. "Listen, thanks for all your help, we're very grateful, but I think we ought to be getting back with out little bounty here", he said and nodded towards Teal'c and Noli. Bra'tac smiled.

"Of course." He turned to Teal'c. "Always good to see you, my friend."

"And you." Teal'c nodded gallantly. They gathered inside the rings' paratmeter, Bra'tac saw them off with a bow and activated the transporter. Rings shot up, light flooded them, and they were back on base.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Noli didn't wake up. Janet wrapped her in thermal blankets, examined her, hooked her up to new machines and took new colorful pictures of her brain. She announced that as far as she knew, Noli's brain activity had adjusted back to normal. Or not, there were small anomalies that she couldn't account for, but they were most likely about her ability to feel energy emissions. Jack mentioned again that they needed to make up a name for that. Teal'c suggested "buzz", as the z's implied the sensation of something vibrating. Daniel explained how the word used in that sense described something you _did_ _to_ something else, rather than the communication that took place between Noli and what she touched, and then went into a monologue about grammar that no one cared to listen to.

Six hours later Noli still hadn't woken up. The team had left her in the competent hands of the medical staff, who could do nothing but fluff her pillow and wait. It was more than they could do for her though, and a sense of disappointment that after all that tension, everything still didn't just go back to normal settled in some of them.

"It's to be expected", Sam said to Daniel, "She's exhausted. Her body needs to rest." Daniel was leaning on her desk, she was fingering her laptop, thinking she might as well get some work done. Daniel grunted.

"I'll bet you she'll sleep like the dead till tomorrow, and then she'll be fit for fight."

"I just wish..." Daniel fidgeted with a pen. He looked up at Sam. "I just wish there was something we could do, you know?" He looked down again.

"I know." Sam took her pen back. "But there's nothing to worry about. She's ok."

"Yeah..."

Daniel left for his own office. He entered slowly, almost reluctantly, and sat down at his desk without turning the lights on. It felt dusty, as if no one had been in there for years. That wasn't the case, he still used it every day. Just not... in as long stretches as before. He sighed deeply. Sam was right, Noli was ok, everything would be fine, let her rest, bring her a bag of peanuts in the morning. Do some work until then. Figure out how many people he would need at the site for going through the rocks in as short a time as possible. Copy the writings and hand them out for reference. Catalogue some of the never-petering pile of artefacts collecting at the base. Think of something to say that could possibly make Noli feel better about her first and only gate travel turning into disaster.

After a while of sitting in the dark, the only light in the room coming through the open door from the empty corridor outside, Daniel started realising how tired he really was. He looked at the time; it was way past bedtime. He gave up his plans on working and went to throw himself on the bed in his quarters instead. He was pretty sure the others had done the same.


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Teal'c snook up early the next morning, avoiding to encounter anyone before going to the gym for a dose of physical exertion. Working up a distracting burn in his muscles with the large dumbells used by very few others than him, he tried to let the concentration building in his mind push out the memory of lifeless flesh in his arms, chilling him to the bone. His instincts had found it hard to grasp how someone could be so cold, and yet not dead. The impression of Noli's hypothermal body against his was as if imprinted on his skin; he had felt it all night and could still feel it when he thought back to those few minutes when he had carried her the day before. Dealing with the dead and injured was nothing new to him, but there was something about seeing Noli as the very opposite of herself that had been very eerie. No energy, no warmth. No words. Empty, the flood of impressions from the world drowning all of her own self.

It had been a relief to turn her over to the medical staff. To know that they had done their part, let the next section take over and rest assured in the promise of recovery. He was convinced she would be fine, because there was simply no other alternative. There could be no absense of her.

To him, Noli was a breeze sweeping through the established routines on the base, a curious little companion that turned up at random intervals and sat in his quarters asking for stories of his life, or took him out to movies. He knew she could be trusted, in the same way he had known Jack O'Neill could be trusted before he knew him. Maybe it was the way she treated him with none of the distancing insecurity he recieved from other people. She wasn't the least bit afraid of him, which he found both a little irritating and relaxing in the beginning; it made any attempts to seem intimidating pointless and she found direct access to person he was beyond the stoic pride. The interest she showed in him was honest, as were the opinions she uttered and the feelings she displayed. There was a refreshing lack of... respect. No polishing words in fear of stepping on his alien toes. And on the other hand, no withholding affection and appreciation either. He had accepted her habit of calling him by other things than his name first patiently, then curiously, and finally pleased. After a while the varieties of sweetheart she called him by had narrowed down to a specialized few and slowly they had snook in and settled next to his real name. Only used by her though, only by her... None of the other team members were dumb enough to try to make a joke out of it, but one of the less experienced, more arrogant sergeants once called him Socks, snickered - and was stared down by a look that left his knees shivering.

He thought back to the incident with a smug sense of satisfaction. Their bond was theirs, it was unique and no one could trespass upon it. The trust Noli placed in him every time she called him by a name she had given him herself was not unnoticed.

He had asked if it this way of addressing him was something he was meant to reciprocate. She negated it, saying pet names come from the heart and not from politeness and that they were not supposed to be returned on principle. Only if they were earned, and if one felt like using that kind of jargon. She knew they were different in that respect, and it was quite natural that the rest of the team weren't as 'flakey' as she.

Fact was, no one had really gotten around to calling Noli anything but Noli back, even if a "hon" could slip from Sam when she was in a loose mood or "kiddo" from Daniel if she hadn't been playing too much sock puppets. Jack mainly stuck to "the nut". Teal'c wondered if she hadn't made herself worthy of better epithets, or at least some with more thought behind them.

After finishing his workout and running an errand Teal'c returned to his quarters. He tidied, made the bed, picked dead leaves from his plants. He lied on his bed and read. Hours went by. He didn't feel like seeing anyone or going out to find something to do; if anyone needed him, they knew where to find him.

In the early afternoon, Jack knocked on the door only to immediatley fling it open.

"Hey big guy, we're wanted."

Teal'c looked up from his pastime, a novel that Sam had given him on some occasion. She said it was about being human and the sorts. He found it quite amusing.

Jack sauntered into the room, hands on his hips. He leaned in to take a closer look at the book in Teal'cs hands.

"Watcha reading there, War and Peace?"

"Yes."

"Well, put it down. They're taking great big machines to PX3-113 and they want us as escort to protect them from great bit scary animals."

Teal'c accepted with a nod, closed the book and left it on the bedside table as they left. He was not anxious to repeat the trip that had been the origin of yesterday's ordeal. He could tell from the ever so vague way Jack didn't hurry that he was not either, but the job needed to be done, and so they packed up and saw an array of machinery and a few technicians and archaeologists through the gate back to the planet of mysterious rocks.


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25

An hour's walking distance from the gate a forest of tall shrubbery and coniferous trees met the grassy plains where low mountains rose to house the caves. After a quick survey, inside and out, Jack cleared the scientist for getting started and a frantic traffic in and out of the caves commenced, a small group of people climbing around, getting dusty and tugging on large rocks. Another group was assembling the equipment to have anything of interest x-rayed on a patch of flat, sandy ground about 50 meters from the rock wall.

The team started setting up camp near the treeline while Daniel submerged himself in work, sitting on the ground like a holy man in the midst of rocks and boulders that he had his staff bring him. He pulled his suncap, the one Noli said was so ugly, down low to shield his eyes from the bright sun and spent his time brushing dust from carved writing, tracing lines with his fingers, making notes.

Teal'c watched from his position in the shade and hoped the wall Daniel was literally building up around himself was not mirrored inside of him. Daniel Jackson was a sensitive person, and Noli Brennan's illness had affected him greatly. More than one would expect, in fact. Daniel had not spoken his concerns, but Teal'c could sense they were greater than the ones he usually expressed when someone close to him was ill or in jeopardy, and he feared Daniel's reaction was making him close his heart and turn into one of the rocks he was studying in order to protect himself from pain.

Upon leaving the base, he had asked about Noli's condition. Sam had told him with a small sigh that nothing had changed since the day before. He felt this to be no cause of alarm, but he knew Daniel was impatient and would wish for Noli to make a full recovery as soon as possible – preferably yesterday.

He looked over to where Sam was pounding tent poles into the ground and saw her send a glance over to their friend. She then looked up at him, and they exchanged a troubled look. She too had noticed Daniel's unusually buttoned up mood. Teal'c shot a glance at Jack who was leaning casually against a tall tree trunk, resting his P-90 on the ground. He didn't look too bothered with anything. In fact, he was looking a little too relaxed.

"O'Neill!" Teal'cs sharp growl made the head of his team leader violently jerk up.

"What?" Jack tried to look as if he hadn't been asleep, but the smirk on Sam's lips revealed it wasn't working. He blinked and put on an annoyed face.

"You can't blame a guy for resting his eyes just a second. In this delightful sun." He gestured unspecifically at the surroundings. "After a long night", he added, too low for Sam to hear. Tealc's spiked hearing caught it however, and his eyes narrowed slightly. Jack usually slept like a baby all through the night, no matter what – there would be something extraordinary disturbing his peace if he were to lie sleepless long enough to feel the effects the next day. Perhaps Daniel wasn't the only one with a lingering feeling of concern for the unconscious scientist back home.

The team of technicians assembling the machinery had packed up and gone back to the base as soon as they were done. Come nightfall, the last of Daniel's archaeologists took their leave as well and the team was left to fend for themselves as they watched over the site.

With no lights of civilization to brighten the night sky the the landscape around them went velvety black as the sun disappeared behind the horizon. Scarce clouds were creating empty patches in the spray of stars emerging on the dark vault above.

After a short but lively discussion regarding whose turn it was to make dinner Sam had sat down in the limelight outside her designated tent to heat up some rations. Usually, to save time and conserve energy, they would set up a smaller camp and bunk up two and two. But as the climate on this planet was agreeable – it was spring or early summer, Sam thought, a nice temperature and not much wind – and there was no tight schedule to keep to they had splurged on three tents: one for her, one for Teal'c who tended to crowd out the person sharing his personal space, and one for Jack and Daniel. They had set them up in a slight half circle, with the wall of the forest as a backdrop, and now a fire was burning in the middle of the site. It was more for ambiance than heat and lighting, and now the flickering orange light of the flames spread softly across the ground, the tents and scattered equipment, and lit the faces of Jack and Daniel from underneath. They had found a broken log in the woods and dragged it into camp; Daniel was sitting on the log and Jack was sitting on a rock across from him. They were both silently watching the fire dance and crackle in front of them. Little glowing flakes of ashes were rising up with the smoke and burning out, disappearing in the air before landing somewhere else.

Sam tapped a spoon on the side of a tin pot and got up. Multiple ingredient cooking, also a splurge. There would be dish-washing. She walked over to the fire and sat down.

"Hey", she said. Jack gave her a nod. She passed the pot around and received an approving noise from Daniel, who had forgotten he was hungry.

"Teal'c! Dinner time", shouted Jack. Within a few seconds the large man silently appeared from somewhere among the trees, not breaking a twig. He smoothly lowered himself to a seat on the ground next to Jack and allowed himself to be served a plate of stew.

"'S good", munched Jack. Sam's lips stretched out in a quick smile. No one felt the need to say anything more and for a while there was only the sound of sporks scraping against plates and crackling from the fire. When he had cleaned his plate, Daniel sat thoughtfully looking down on it. Teal'c studied him through his lashes for a while and then asked:

"Are you not well, Daniel Jackson?"

Daniel's face followed his eyebrows up.

"Hm?"

Teal'c's face remained inexpressive as always.

"Your behavior today has been... uncharacteristic."

Sam crooked the corner of her mouth at his words. There was no one to use indifference to cover up keen interest quite like Teal'c. Daniel straightened up a bit and looked around at them.

"What?"

"I think what Teal'c means to say is that you don't seem as thrilled about all these findings as you'd normally be", said Sam.

"We usually can't get you to shut up", Jack added, helping himself to the remains in the cooking pot. Daniel did have a habit of falling into excited rambling after a day of excavating; developing theories, telling anecdotes, explaining myths. But not today. Daniel shrugged and spoke with uncharacteristic uncertainty.

"Yeah, well. It would have been more fun if... Not that I'm not enjoying myself, I mean it's incredibly... interesting..." He fell silent for a moment, then added: "By the way, Jack, I don't think I'm the only one feeling crappy about Noli getting sick."

Teal'c turned his gaze to Jack.

"This is true. You have also been disconcerted, O'Neill."

Jack looked offended. "You seem a little out of it yourself, Teal'c" he mumbled. _Damn_, he thought, _how could they tell_? Jack hated to have his vigor questioned, but there was no denying that the big guy was right - he just didn't want to talk about it. And the fact that Teal'c, the pillar stone, _did _seem ever so slightly out of it, just added to the discomfort.

"I guess we're all a little tired today, guys", Sam said, trying to add some sense of diplomacy to Teal'c's straightforward accusations.

Teal'c looked regally straight ahead for a second or two. Then he reached into one of his breast pockets and pulled out an envelope. From another pocket he fished out a pen. The others followed his movements closely.

"What've you got there, T?" asked Jack with his chin in the air, careful not to sound too interested. Teal'c opened the envelope and took out the contents, studied it for a second and then passed it to Jack. Jack took it, looked at it and then passed it to Sam. Sam stared at it for a second, let out a surprised chuckle and passed it on to Daniel. Daniel held it between his fingers and studied it in silence.

It was a get-well card. The background was bright red, and on it was a cute, comic-like drawing of a little girl lying in bed. She had the covers pulled up underneath her chin and a thermometer sticking out of her mouth, and an unhappy look on her face. Above her, printed in big golden letters, it said: "Get well soon, Peanut!"

"Teal'c, you're a genius", mumbled Daniel.

Sam smiled. "It's perfect", she said. Teal'c looked pleased.

"I already took the liberty of expressing our wishes for her recovery on the inside. I understand it is tradition." Daniel opened the card. Inside, sturdy black letters spelled "We impatiently await your recovery." He let a smile slip across his face. "You got that pen?"

Teal'c handed it to him and he signed the card "Shekarim". He passed the things over to Sam and she bit the pen before deciding to go with the frequently used "Cookie". She rose and gave the card and pen to Jack, who shot sideways glances at his company before he huddled up and signed the card with "The old Pumpkin". He closed it before handing it back to Teal'c. Teal'c carefully scribbled "Hot Chocolate" at the bottom, put the card back in its envelope and put it in his pocket.

The atmosphere around the camp felt considerably lighter. Daniel seemed to have regained some of his usual energy, but was still looking thoughtfully into the flames of the little fire.  
"Sam", he said. "Yesterday when you came to get... Peanut." He tried the name out and it sat well on his tongue. It was right, it was her, she was darling little Peanut. He smiled to himself before he continued. "You said something about how you thought of the vacuum, that it was something she said?"

Sam recalled the moment. "Right. Yeah, you know that thing she says when she think someone's complaining too much?"

Daniel thought about it. "Oh, ah... 'You don't like the smell of dead plants, get the hell out of my greenhouse.'"

Sam wrinkled her forehead. "No, it's..."

"'If you dislike bleeding, do not stand in front of my dart board.'" Teal'c filled in.

"'If you don't like death and mayhem, why are you handing me this gun?'" suggested Jack.

"No! 'If you don't like to get wet, don't dwell in the tub'..." Sam let her hand fall down on her lap.

"Ah. That one."

There was a moment of silence.

"How was she doing with that, by the way? The death and mayhem", asked Daniel.

"Weapons training? Good, good... Average development. She could fire in one general direction alright. I don't think firearms are her weapons of choice though", answered Jack, who had spent a few hours with Noli at the firing range.

"Well we all knew that. Noli's not really the fighter type, is she."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. I've never seen anyone fling a knife quite like the Nut. Except maybe Teal'c."

Sam and Daniel stared at Jack.

"What? She never showed you that trick where she does that... ?" He flicked his wrist and made a swishing sound. His colleagues seemed baffled by this new information about their friend, and he feigned a mild surprise to hide that he was just a little bit smug to be the only one privy to it up until now. He understood the difficulties Sam and Daniel must be having at the moment, trying to imagine Noli handling any kind of weapons. He'd been surprised enough himself when he had seen her use a knife the first time, in the beginning of her training. She had gotten sick of missing the target and quickly pulled the knife from her belt, and suddenly it was stuck dead center in the plywood, vibrating from the impact.

It didn't quite fit, they agreed. The image popping up in Daniel's head was of Noli tossing a hunting knife hard across the office, driving it into a rare copy of "Egyptian myths" in the bookshelf and saying something like "Man, I was aiming for the ceiling". Not that she was clumsy, in spite of all the self derogatory expressions she used he'd been fairly assured of that a long time ago. It was just that he couldn't picture her doing damage to anything on purpose.

The fire burned down and they sat watching the last dying glow in the charcoal that remained. Sam stood up and stretched with her arms over her head. Jack caught a glimpse of the strip of skin showing above her waistline as her army green t-shirt pulled up. He ignored it and looked away, as always.

"I'm going to bed. Are you guys gonna stay out here all night or what?" she yawned.

"Nah", said Jack and allowed himself a discrete tongue-in-cheek remark; "Join you in a minute."

"Yeah, you wish"_,_ mumbled Sam with a smirk as she turned around and crawled into her tent.

It was cool within the thin fabric walls, and a weak shine from the lantern hanging outside was softly diverged through the material and left just enough light to see by. The soft murmur of voices coming from outside seemed more distant when she had closed the zipper of the entrance and she was thankful for being alone for the first time all day. Her sleeping bag was already rolled out on the ground and she plopped down on it, landing mercifully softly on the self-inflated mattress underneath. She started untying her laces, but stopped halfway down the right boot as she was struck by an unwelcome thought. She took a deep breath, let it out and fell down flat on her back. The top of the tent disappeared beyond the scarce light and she stared into the dark, putting words on another one of the disturbing feelings that came over her sometimes.

"I wish you wish", she said to herself and immediately winced as she realized the walls around her weren't much towards keeping sound out. She bit her lip and listened for the voices outside. There was a moment of unnerving silence before Daniel spoke.

"Sam, did you say something?"

"No", she called and ground her teeth. She heard Jack comment on Daniel "hearing things" and then the sounds of men moving around, sizzling from drowning ashes and zippers being pulled as they went to get some sleep in the neighbouring tents. There was a while of shuffling as BDU's were pulled off, boots thrown in different directions, complaining over Jack making a mess and general tossing and turning inside the sleeping bags before silence finally fell over the camp. Sam lay awake in the dark, half indulging in, half fighting off the fantasies in her head. The fact that her commanding officer was lying without his clothes on a mere few meters from her was, although the situation itself occurred more than often, giving rise to certain images in her mind. She wondered if he slept in his boxers or kept his t-shirt on, imagined the warmth from his body filling her sleeping bag, and she ached with all her heart for him to come over and unzip the opening and crawl inside while praying that he wouldn't. And she knew he wouldn't.


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Daniel and Jack were both tucked into their sleeping bags and lay ready to fall asleep. Except Daniel wasn't really. He was staring at the ceiling, or into the dark that covered it, while his mind wandered around aimlessly. Rocks were flashing before his eyes, small ones, big ones, rocks that had inscriptions, rocks that were strangely shaped and rocks that were just rocks. He thought about how long it would take him to analyze all of them – not forever, but long enough to make it seem boring. He never found that kind of basic work boring before. He must have become spoiled from hiring Noli to do these tasks over the last months. Going rate: candy. Or nuts. He had to remember to ask if she liked those candied nuts. Seemed like the ultimate Peanut snack.

"Hey, Jack?" he whispered.

Jack grunted.

"Jack?"

Jack sighed. "What?"

"Did you ask if she was awake? When you checked in with Hammond?"

"Who, Peanut?" Jack sounded groggy. No problems falling asleep there. He always got whiny when Daniel tried to talk to him when he was trying to sleep. Who knew why.

"No, his secretary. Yes, Noli."

Jack was quiet for a moment before answering, articulating each letter. "No, I didn't." Then he gave up and opened his eyes and continued in a milder tone. "I'm sure he would have told us of any changes, Daniel."

"Yeah..." Daniel drifted off in thoughts again.

"By the way, I've been wondering", said Jack after a while. Daniel turned his head to look at him. "Does she ever brush her hair?"

Daniel turned back and thought about it. "She says she forgets", he answered. A second passed before he added: "I like her hair. Sort of brings out..."

"The mad scientist in her?"

"Well... I was gonna say her eyes but yeah." They both had a quiet chuckle.

Jack nudged Daniel with his elbow. "So what else do you like about her?" He tried not to sound too gleeful but smirked under protection of the dark. Daniel trailed off and started listing things about Noli that popped up in his head.

"She's funny... caring... nice le... hey!" he called out, insulted when he realized what Jack was making him say. Jack burst into a taunting giggle as Daniel tried to slap hip with whatever clothing was close at hand. He lay back down and let out a laugh himself.

"Nice legs, huh?"

"Yeah, well. One can't help but to notice these things. Doesn't mean anything, Jack."

"No, no, you're right. Hair, eyes, legs... it's what we all go around noticing."

Daniel didn't reward him with an answer.

"Teal'c's got a nice pair on him."

Daniel kept quiet.

"_Why do birds suddenly appear... every time... you are n..."_

"Shut up, Jack!" Daniel tried to smother Jack's giggles with his pillow.

"What are you guys laughing at?" called Sam from her end of the camp. She swore, sometimes these missions were like band camp all over again.

"Nothing", Jack called back.  
"Yeah, you must be hearing things", added Daniel. He laid back down, tucked his pillow back under his head and crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm going to sleep now, Jack. If you feel like bothering someone, go bother Sam."

The comment dug into Jack and left him quiet with his own thoughts. It wasn't meant as a sarcastic comeback, he didn't think, but it sure sounded like one. Was it possible that any of his thoughts concerning the major shone through? Go bother Carter, all alone in her tent... as if Daniel had sensed that was exactly the image roaming in Jack's head at the moment. But he was always so careful to put up an indifferent facade. He always hid these feelings way in the back of his mind where they wold never see the light of day. Never out of protocol, always professional. Cheeky, yes, familiar, yes, but they were family and he treated them all with the same appropriate amount of intimacy. Every fiery look he could have given, every emotion that could have gone out of bounds was carefully withheld and locked in the closet of his mind to be hidden from the world. He hoped.

Jack gave the dilemma a few more minutes and then decided to ignore the whole thing. If Daniel had some intuitive perception of his inner life, then so be it. Even if he should call Jack on it he had no obvious proof to counter the intense denial that would surely follow. And Jack knew he was way too sensitive to ever say anything to Carter about it. He shook it off, made himself comfortable and within minutes he was sound asleep.


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

Early the next morning the team awoke to the patter of light rain. Sam lay awake for a while, looking up to the thin canvas diverting the droplets falling from the sky towards her. She imagined how they would be free-falling several hundred meters before being rudely interrupted in their path, slamming into the green smooth material and led down the steep hill of the tent to land outside of her protective bubble. She was dry. For now.

It wasn't long before that was over. After a quick breakfast she, her CO and her alien friend were put to the tedious work of moving rocks the size of basketballs from a pile outside the cave into the tent of white canvas that shielded the x-ray machinery from the elements. The light rain soon decided to turn into a pour, and within the hour they were uncomfortably moist in every spot that wasn't inadequately covered by their rain ponchos. Jack muttered, Teal'c was stoic. Daniel made notes, sorted and catalogued. At the work station he felt like he was tending a kind of bizarre airport security check, heaving alien rocks onto the short conveyor belt that led them through the x-ray machine suspiciously similar to the ones he had watched his luggage pass through a thousand times. Some of the rocks had clear markings on them, some of them none – but he didn't want to take any chances and miss one of the components enclosed and ran them all through the x-ray. They were all from the same collection of strangely regular rocks found sitting in a suspiciously organized way in the cave, and so far all the ones he had examined had had one foreign object or another inside of them. What an intriguing story this was, when you thought about it. He wondered who the people were that made these devices, and what they were for. Why had they chosen to hide them away and preserve them this way? Had there been a war, a cataclysm? They apparantly wanted to save this technology for coming generations, camouflaging it in a way only someone who was advanced enough would be able to see through. Noli would have been immensly curious. He could see her running around between rocks, making excited sqeeky noises and patting things. "Get this one... and this one... Oh, this one's nice... No, leave it, there's nothing in it, I just thought it was pretty..." He smiled to himself. It was going to be interesting to go back and see what she had to say about this whole ordeal. A colorful array of swears, no doubt.

"Daniel Jackson."

Daniel jumped and realised he had been staring blankly at the same image for a while now.

"Hey, Teal'c", he said and straightened in his chair, looking a bit disoriented before he found the button to push and let the rock of the moment out of its holding.

Teal'c was standing in the doorway, almost filling the whole opening with his large frame. His face remained expressionless while he studied his friend for a moment. Then he decided to enter the small tent and have a moment's refuge from the foul weather. Not that it was much use, he was already so wet standing in the rain or not made no difference, but it was a bit warmer in there with the machines. He grunted silently at how his time with the Tau'ri had made him soft.

Daniel rubbed some sand out of his eye and continued scribbling in one of his notebooks. "How you doing, buddy?"

"I am well", Teal'c thanked him. "How are you?"

Daniel looked up. That sounded unfamiliar coming from Teal'c. "I'm good, I guess..." His face squinted up a bit. "So... did you want something?"

Teal'c's face lightened into almost a smile. There was something satisfied about his voice when he spoke. "You seem distracted. Were you thinking about anything in particular when I entered?"

Daniel didn't bother acting coy since there was nothing to be coy about. "I was just thinking it's a shame Peanut's missing all this. Think she would have loved it", he said and swept his eyes across the considerable collection of mysterious-device-hiding rocks that lay labeled and ready to go in the other end of the tent. Teal'c stepped closer, dripping water on the ground.

"You miss her", he stated.

"No more than usual."

Daniel paused for a second and wondered why these people kept tricking him into confessing his, very normal and friendly, affection for Peanut. The smug look on Teal'c's face annoyed him. Before he had the time to say anything more Teal'c changed the subject.

"Doctors Johnstone and Wendon just arrived from the SGC. They are ready to begin first transport."

Daniel immediately cheered up. "Oh! Ok, well, just tell them to get in here and get started." Teal'c nodded and disappeared. Daniel's colleagues appeared shortly and they opened up the tent in the other end to move their bounty onto an awaiting MALP.

Daniel left them to it, there wasn't much room to maneuver in anyway and they would only get in the way of each other. He stayed at the primitive desk, looking through page after page of copied symbols and tried to find a pattern or a familiar line. Scattered drops of rain blew in through the opening and landed on the floor and his desk. One suddenly landed on the back of Daniel's hand, and he was surprised at how cold it felt on his skin. He held his hand up and looked at the tiny splatter of water, and then slowly turned his wrist and watched the waterdrop run across the ridge of his hand, down along his thumb. It hung onto the edge of his thumbnail for a moment before losing its grip and falling down on the desk. It landed in his notebook. It soaked the ink of a small symbol and made it bleed out into the paper. The watered down ink spread in a circle with spidery veins stretching out from the centre along the fibres of the paper. Daniel stared at the inkblot. Gears in his head turned, clicked into place and he knocked the chair over backwards when he shot out of his seat and ran out. "Jack!" he bellowed, then spun around and stuck in his track when he couldn't decide on who to stop first, the people bringing the rocks away from the cave or the people taking the rocks off the planet. After the eternity of a second he managed to tear his feet off the ground and continued towards the cave, shouting to the people behind him to stop what they were doing.

Jack, bored and soggy, contemplated just dropping the rock he was holding straight onto the ground when Daniel came running, shouting at him. He was probably going to reveal that the stupid rocks were completely useless and they had been doing con labor for nothing. Or that they were on the wrong planet. However, he calculated the levels of scolding he would recieve if anything broke and opted to set it down nice and gently. He also wondered why, with all the resources of the Base, they couldn't summon one wheelbarrow.

"Jack!" panted Daniel after his sprint.

"What? We're on the wrong planet?"

Daniel gave him a bewildered look. "Wha..? Jack! Put them back!" He waved towards the rock collection on the ground. "We need to put them back in the cave."

Jack sqeezed his eyes shut and pinched the base of his nose.

"Excuse me?"

Daniel sighed and tried to find the words to express the intuitive insight he had just had. After a minute of studdering and gesturing he had made it clear: He suspected that the order in which the pieces of machinery had been placed in the cave was not completely haphazard. He had had a strange feeling when he first saw them, lying on the ground covered by a footprint-ridden layer of dust. The feeling was small and unimportant, hidden among a hundred other thoughts, and he had forgotten about it until the inblot in his notebook had reminded him of it again: The rocks had been laying in a pattern. An organic, irregular pattern that one wouldn't notice at a first glance or even at a more thorough survey, but somewhere in him it had registered and now he needed it back as it was. There was a meaning to it, and he wouldn't know exactly what until he could see it.

* * *

It would take Daniel and his little helpers quite some time to get the disguised alien devices back in place. They thanked whatever gods available that doctor Conrad and his exploration team had documented the cave fairly well before they went back to tell SGC about it, and that Daniel was somewhat anal about labelling things. Once they had the rocks back where they had found them, more or less, Daniel loitered around the cave and tried to make sense of things while his colleagues in archaeology patiently waited for him outside. They tried cautiosly to help him, which would have been easier if it hadn't been for the fact that they had no idea what he was looking for. And for the fact that he seemed even less suceptible to any kind of social interacting than usual at the moment. He would often forget to be curtious to other people when ingulfed by some interesting problem, and they knew this, but this time he seemed uncharacteristically brooding and they opted to stay out of his way.

Jack had promptly refused to have the rest of the team keep assisting Daniel on this, as he put it, "God damn waste of resources and it's boring" and decided to go back to the SGC. Hopefully there would be some nice scouting missions to spend their time on while Daniel was figuring out rocks and patterns and life and whatever.

When they stepped through the gate general Hammond was already approaching them.

"Colonel!" Hammond seemed surprised, but also pleased to see the team arrive ahead of schedule. "I was just about to summon you when we recieved your IDC."

"Oh?" The colonel was apprehensive. Had there been some sort of crisis while they were gone?

It could be interesting. Or very much not interesting.

"There has been a... situation. The people of Aldera request for your mediation in a difficult dispute."

Oh, definitely interesting.

The little planet of PKT-314, known by its inhabitants as Aldera, was one of Jack's personal favourites. For reasons no one was quite sure of the people had taken a liking to him and his surly, impatient ways and now welcomed him and his team with open arms. The SGC's main concern with the otherwise peaceful Alderans was the underlying conflicts between some of the tribes that threatened to disturb their valuable trade – medical knowledge for naquadah. SG1, led by the otherwise not known for his diplomatic skills Colonel O'Neill, had soon become the mediators of choice. It was like keeping a bunch of kids quarreling over a puppy away from getting the animal hurt in the process, and before, during and after negotiations Jack was always sure to be treated to some good food and exotic fermented beverages.

"Sir, what happened?" Sam asked with concern. The general waved avertingly.

"It seems someone is about to wage war upon someone, I'm not sure what it was all about, they were a little hazy on the details. But cheif Anden sounded quite desperate."

"Doesn't he always."

Hammond gave Jack tired look. "Yes, well. You are to depart immediately."

Jack turned to the others.

"Alright guys, you know the drill. Let's go."

Sam made the smallest of winces. She knew the drill, and the drill in this case involved donning the strange rural outfit the locals loaned them every time they visited because keeping their own clothes was somehow slightly offensive. Albeit they had done their best to make one that fitted well and felt comfortable enough, but it still threw her off her game to be out of uniform on official business. With a quick glance at Teal'c, who she knew harbored similar feelings when it came to some of the Alderans' stubborn formalities, she turned as the wormhole opened towards the new destination and followed her teammates through.

* * *

Anden, the middle-aged man with his beard slightly askew who functioned as the chief politician to the largest grouping of people on Aldera, met them with arms wide open. He carried the Ceremonial Staff of Faraway Guests and Peacekeepers – or VIP-stick – in front of them as he led the group into town. He paraded them through the main gates and down a few dusty streets where people turned their heads and smiled as they passed. They arrived at the Well-Adorned Building of Meetings and History – or town hall – where a pleasant official quickly shooed them off to the changing rooms before they were allowed into the main halls.

Jack pulled uneasily on his lent collar as they waited for Sam in the large, wood panelled Negotiation Chamber. It always took her so long to change into that weird outfit and he wasn't willfully trying to think of her pulling her t-shirt over her head, tousling her playfully short blonde hair, or supple suade tightened around her form with laces; it just happened all by itself. He couldn't help it.

They all wanted to get this over with as soon as possible, so when they heard Sam's footsteps finally approaching from a hallway on the side some of the impatient atmosphere lightened. The door opened and Jack just about caught a sight of a bare, slender arm and the curve of a suede-covered hip before they were all startled by the awful sound of seams ripping.

Sam stumbled into the room. One of the softly flowing lower sections of the dress had caught on a splinter and as she had stepped forward, a big tear had opened along her thigh.

"Oh!" Sam stared at the hole with eyes wide open. "I'm so sorry!" She saught eyecontact with Teal'c for support before daring to face chief Anden and his secretary; the team knew that damaging the painstakingly put together and very holy ceremonial clothes was a diplomatic disaster.

Chief Anden had his eyes shut tight. His fists were clenched at his sides, and Sam was pretty sure he was holding his breath as well. His secretary on the other hand had eyes the size of satellite dishes, and they were pointed at her in barefaced horror. After three seconds of painful silence the man approached her in a few quick strides.

"Chief Relyon will be here any minute!" he hissed, and then stared at her as if she knew exactly what this meant. "If he sees the Meeting Gown in this condition-"

He was interrupted by a horn toot and the main doors were flung open. A succession of men and women dressed in the same kind of rural, yet finely crafted, brown leather clothes begun marching in to gather along the walls of the room. Sam did a swooping half-turn, moving the torn side away from the people coming in, and did her best to gracefully cover the hole with her hands. Swiftly, awoken from his reverie around Sam's thigh by the horn, Jack moved to her side and positioned himself as close to Sam's side as possible without pushing her over, to help cover up the torn bit of her dress. They smiled awkwardly as the tall frame of chief Relyon entered and stopped in front of them, looking loud and authoritative as always. Chief Andens secretary quickly approached him with soothing words.

"All the well wishes for you and your pe- "

"Greetings of honour and respect, and so on", chief Relyon rumbled. "General!" A woman with a remarkably strict ponytail stepped out from the line and slapped a scroll down into the chief's held out palm. He unrolled it and started reading from the Official Document of Meetings and Negotiation necessary to begin any official business. Jack and Sam discretely backed away in small steps.

"From the beginnings of time our different peoples have gathered in chambers such as this to make valuable connections, to discuss and to find resolve." Chief Relyon deeply cleared his throat, looking impatient and slightly uncomfortable with the formalities. "And so it has been th-"

Suddenly Jack was on the floor. The deafening boom that had accompanied the blinding explosion left him momentarily disoriented and blinking with the dust covering his face. All of the windows and a large part of the wall were now in bits and pieces on the floor, on the table and on the people in various states of panic in the room. He looked up to his right and stared into the wild looking face of Chief Relyon, who had landed next to him.

"Get to your feet, son!" he roared through the commotion. "It's the Rage of the Gods!"

Jack took a moment to ponder on where this reliably grumpy and pragmatic, and to him always oddly familiar man, had suddenly found religion. Then he jumped to his feet only to be knocked over again by the man with the big staff coming in through the blasted windows. The man elegantly jumped up onto the table, knocked the staff loudly on it two times, and then shouted: "The Rage of the Gods has fallen upon you! You are all our prisoners until our demands have been met by the Counsil!"


End file.
